


A Cure for a King -- A Dragon Age Fantasy

by FlytsOfAngels



Series: Reflections of the Dragon Age [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Part One of Reflections of the Dragon Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 53,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2505806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlytsOfAngels/pseuds/FlytsOfAngels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhoane, mage and the Hero of Ferelden, must leave her love, the newly crowned King Alistair, for his sake and for hers.  Plagued by dreams of the Black City, she journeys to the Circle Tower and the Tevinter Imperium to discover a cure for the "Grey Warden curse" and to answer the question, "Is it really possible to kill a god?"</p><p>If you enjoyed this tale, you're invited to enjoy the continuing story of Rhoane Amell in Two Witches and a Scoundrel and Sisters of the Inquisition, which explore more of the secrets surrounding the Amell family ...</p><p>Comments always welcome ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One -- Chapter One

She could barely suppress the surge of pride that raced through her as she watched her victorious king, King Alistair, accept the cheers and congratulations of his grateful subjects. She would have cheered herself, if she hadn’t been so bone-deep weary — tired of the running and fighting, exhausted from the constant draw of magic through her entire being. Stepping back into the shadows, she leaned her forehead against the frost-cool gem that was embedded into her staff and briefly closed her dark brown eyes. Rest. Yes, that was what she needed: a long rest completely devoid of charred rabbit and rock-hard bedding.

She looked up at Alistair again, her eyes drinking in every detail of that beloved face. He looked older now than when they had first met. More regal. And could his shoulders actually be wider, more ready to bear the responsibilities of ruling Ferelden? She remembered the feel of those taunt muscles under her fingertips when they had made love in their camp in the Bannorn wilderness. The grating prickle of his beard against her face and the fiery hunger of his kisses had completely enthralled her, binding them together in ways that the long hours of travel and battle never could have. She felt the sweep of love rush up in her as a gentle smile of remembrance started on her lips …

And froze, incomplete. Anora, the queen of Ferelden — once and for years to come — stepped up to her new husband, King Alistair, and whispered something into his ear. The mage watching from the shadows stiffened and raised her head, her love for Alistair washed away in a cresting wave of jealousy. If she were just an ordinary woman, Anora would be gasping her last breaths on the uneven slabs of the castle’s central hall. The smile that had been starting across the mage’s face twisted into a smirk of gentle malice, as she imagined herself and Alistair locked in an embrace with the queen’s blood pooling around their feet, just as the blood of so many darkspawn had spread out around them. She laughed, a sharp, bitter sound, and closed her eyes again.

“And here I thought that the shadows were my private realm,” Zevran, the elf assassin, purred as he stepped out of the deeper gloom nearby and up to her side. He looked at her briefly with those strangely wise eyes and then at the king and queen on their dais. “So we lose him to the people of Ferelden, eh? To duty and endless political squabbling … and to the arms of a most beautiful queen.”

She sighed. “He doesn’t have to lose you, Zevran,” she replied, her voice tightly controlled against the tears that were beginning in the corners of her eyes. “You can be his particular emissary to the Crows. Or you could start your own private spy network to serve Alistair in the future. You can be useful to him.”

“And you are not, my dear Grey Warden?” he asked, still staring ahead of him at the lovely tableau of Alistair and his queen. “I seem to recall that you were the one who dragged that unwilling rascal across the kingdom. You are the one who negotiated all the treaties with the disparate races. You are the one who left him in command of the armies while you went off to face the great Archdemon alone.”

“I was not alone,” she said defiantly, her voice rising slightly in volume with the slash of anger she felt. “You know damned well that I took …”

“Peace, my friend,” Zevran said, turning toward her and laying one of his hands over the both of hers that were still clutching the staff. “You know that I only tease. Your decisions have always been for the best.” He lifted his hand from hers and turned back toward the dais. “Even the most difficult ones.”

Her breath huffed out in another sigh, a strange mix of regret and longing. She glanced up at Alistair again, then quickly away. He seemed to be looking for someone in the crowd; unfortunately, it was probably for her. Leaning closer to Zevran, she whispered in his long, pointed ear. “I think he’s looking for me, Zev. What can I do?”

The elf whispered back. “At the moment, you are in luck, because some other arl has claimed his attention. No, do not look back,” he warned, turning away from the front of the room and using the press of his shoulder against her body to turn her in the same direction. “You are a most lucky young lady, my dear Grey Warden, because — as I have said before — the shadows are my private realm. If you will accompany me among them, perhaps we can find a way to distract you from your … unpleasant thoughts. I am certain that some of the excellent techniques that I learned from the Antivan whores who raised me …”

“Zevran!” she gasped in outrage, stopping against the eager press of his hand on her back. While it had seemed supportive and encouraging a moment ago, now it seem steeped in lascivious ill-intentions, a smarmy reminder of Zevran’s all-too-skilled sexuality.

The pressure of Zevran’s hand lessened, but it still urged her to move forward. She acquiesced, listening to his rebuttal as they moved on together. “No, no, my friend. You misunderstand me — and probably the workings of any truly successful brothel. The honest secret of the art of the prostitute is to provide whatever the client desires. And sometimes, it takes a well-asked question or two — or perhaps the conversation of many hours — for a man to come to his own conclusion about what he truly needs from the transaction.” He stopped abruptly, the two of them concealed from Alistair and Anora by the edge of a doorframe. “You thought that I would learn sexual techniques from the women I thought of as my mothers! Shame upon you, Grey Warden; shame, shame!”

She barely caught the twinkle in Zevran’s eye as he looked behind them. She had always enjoyed the assassin’s open acceptance of his past — and his honest enjoyment of bedding his fellowman, of all shapes and sizes. It had helped her understand that what she and Alistair had found in each other was something natural, something that people sought out their entire lives for good or ill. It had been good with Alistair, she had to admit. Now, it had to be a pleasant memory for her to treasure — alone — for the rest of her life.

Zevran urged her forward again. “It appears, my dear Grey Warden,” he said, “that we did not escape the assembly undetected. We are to have some company.”

He pulled her into a small, unlit chamber on the other side of the hallway, leaving the door open for anyone to follow them. She heard the scratch of steel against flint and watched the light grow from the flame of the candle that the assassin had found among the crates and barrels that were piled around them. She let out another long, tired sigh and hitched herself up to sit on one of the barrels.

Zevran had been right: they were followed. Within moments, the huge Mabari hound that had been trailing her since Ostagar bounded into the room and jumped over to place his paws in her lap. She smiled at him, dropping her staff on top of another barrel and burying her face against his furry neck, hugging him tightly to her. The dog whined softly and dropped his huge head onto her shoulder, not minding at all that she seemed to want to squeeze the life out of him. She clutched him tighter, digging her fingers through the bristly hackles that would rise up so quickly on his back when he thought she was being threatened. Bristles that burned against her cheek like someone’s whiskers had, in the sparkling firelight …

“Oh, there you are,” Leliana’s musical voice drifted through the door. Looking up, the Grey Warden saw both the bard and Wynne, the Grey Warden’s fellow mage and mentor, entering the room. She released her hold on the Mabari’s neck and sat up.

“On guard, Noble,” she said to the dog. “Outside, in the hall.”

The hound tilted his head to one side and then lowered it. In a strange motion that the mage could only associate with her hound, he butted his forehead against her chest and then slipped his legs off her lap. She watched as he stepped out into the hallway and lay down in front of the door.

“We thought we had lost you,” the bard said, laughing lightly. “Wynne and I were on our way to talk with you, but then you disappeared like a shadow at nightfall. I … um … we … uh …”

“We had reached a bit of an impasse, you see, dear,” Wynne seemed to pick up on the unusually tongue-tied bard’s thought and continued for her. “Leliana and I were having a conversation about the very hopeful picture that Alistair and Anora presented, standing there together in front of all their subjects. Leliana reminded me of that part of the lore of the Grey Wardens is that they are unable to procreate.”

“There is specific mention of it,” Leliana took up the argument, twisting her fingers together in that nervous habit she had revealed in quiet moments in their camps. The Grey Warden smiled and listened as she continued. “There are even lyrics in some of the more obscure ballads about the Grey Wardens from Orlais that mention it specifically. ‘We take it up, the Brothers’ call, to join in war unkind. Our families lost, our friends a dream, no heir shall hence ye find …’” The bard drifted off, humming the tune of the ancient song softly under her breath, stopping and repeating phrases that seemed to slip from her memory, as if to record them more firmly there. Wynne frowned at the bard’s seeming inability to keep herself focused on the subject that they had been discussing and sighed, looking over at the Grey Warden again.

“There must be an heir,” she continued. “Ferelden’s unity is too fragile a thing to jeopardize with another change in rule. Anora and Alistair’s marriage must be blessed with a child. Do you have any idea whether …” the mage trailed off.

Zevran interjected, “You doubt his prowess? After we have all, ourselves, heard him exercising those particular … skills … with as much energy and abandon as he has ever used to face the darkspawn?”

The Grey Warden felt a flush spread across her neck and up into her cheeks. She kept her eyes focused on the hands that were resting in her lap, mostly to avoid the teasing light that she was sure she would see in the assassin’s eyes. No, she had never doubted Alistair’s ability or eagerness in their coupling. He had been as willing to explore her contours and pleasures as she had been willing to explore his. Their passionate adoration of each other’s bodies bonded them to each other so deeply that she often woke these days with the strange feeling that she was wrapped in his arms. She watched her fingers clench and unclench as her three friends continued.

“No, Zevran,” Wynne scolded him, “we don’t question whether Alistair will be willing — maybe even eager — to have marital relations with his wife. She is his wife now, after all, and he clearly understands that he has a duty to his country that supersedes all other commitments that he has made in the past. And we know that Rhoane is a Grey Warden, so certainly the order will call her away from Denerim. She will have to make the journey to Weisshaupt to inform the commanders there about the losses and gains we’ve made in our battle against the darkspawn, and the many things we’ve discovered about their … breeding processes … and …”

Rhoane, the Grey Warden mage, shuddered, remembering the things they had found in the darkness of the Deep Roads while searching for Branka and the Anvil of the Void. It was her duty to report such things to those in command at Weisshaupt Fortress, and yet …

“Maker preserve us, they are in love,” Leliana whined softly, her voice sounding deeply regretful to the Grey Warden’s ears.

“Well, she has certainly learned from her years in the Circle,” Wynne argued, “that duty and self-control come before any baser passion that we may express …”

“Baser!” the bard exclaimed. “You are calling the only true, deeply lasting emotion that two people can feel ‘base’?”

“No, Leliana,” the mage continued, “I’m calling it ‘baser.’ There are certain emotions that help us rise above the level of animals …”

“And love is one of those,” Leliana retorted, clearly focused on the argument she was having with the elder mage. “Love — like the love that Andraste shared with the Maker — is the one emotion that shows that we are more than animals …”

“And so do honor and duty,” Wynne snapped back. “Alistair will do his duty, because he is a true and honorable man.”

“Perhaps,” the bard continued. “But you cannot doubt that he truly loved … still loves Rhoane. They are bound in their hearts, minds, and souls. Perhaps his deep, true love for her will render him impotent, unable …”

Wynne’s voice was rising in volume, uncharacteristically for her, who had always seemed completely in control of her every emotion. “His duty is to the queen. The question of impotence is what brought us here in the first place.”

“Morrigan seemed to think there was still a chance that he could father a child,” the Grey Warden blurted out, her eyes still focused on her hands.

An icy quiet descended on the room — like the shift of snow from the overhanging eaves of a house, it plopped down among the friends. Rhoane looked up at the three sets of eyes that were suddenly riveted to her face and felt the uprush of a blush into her cheeks again. Honestly, there were only so many secrets any one person could hold onto in a lifetime: her love affair with Alistair would be the greatest one. Some others would have to move out to make room.

She sighed and slipped down from the barrel, reaching out to take up her staff again and slip it over her shoulder into its traveling brace. “When he acknowledged me in the ceremony, Alistair mentioned that there were already questions as to why we are both alive. The Grey Wardens are suspicious. I’m surprised none of you are.”

Wynne was the first to recover. “Well, it hadn’t even occurred to me … with all the excitement and happiness …”

“And we all were whirling when things worked out so well,” Leliana added.

Zevran crossed his arms and frowned at her. “It is not like any of us is an expert on being a Grey Warden. Why, you are barely even able to call yourself a member of the Order. You are still, as they say, very wet behind the ears, young lady, when it comes to understanding what it means to be a Grey Warden.”

Rhoane nodded and replied, “As you say, Zevran. But Riordan, you know, that Grey Warden we found in the cells. The one who flung himself off the tower …”

She paused and choked down the tears that were rising again, threatening to overcome her power to speak. She mentally chastised herself for being so sentimental. She was a Grey Warden, the Hero of Ferelden, and a full-fledged mage in the Circle of Magi. Nothing in that list of achievements said she was or ever had been an emotional basket case.

“Riordan told Alistair and me that, in the past, the Grey Warden who killed the Archdemon always knew that he or she was giving up his or her life in the process,” she looked around the cluster of concerned faces, knowing that her words had not quite registered with her friends. “The Grey Warden always dies with the demon.”

“No!” Leliana gasped, her fingers flying up to cover her mouth.

“That cannot be,” Zevran crowed dismissively. “You are there, as certainly as I am here.”

“But …” Wynne stuttered.

Rhoane held up a hand to quiet her friends. “Morrigan came to me before the battle, saying that she knew of a way that Alistair and I could both survive, even if we went to face the Archdemon together. She said that if Alistair … lay with her … she would conceive a child.” The Grey Warden struggled with her emotions, the desire to stop speaking and clutch her secrets more closely into herself the strongest of all. But these were her friends, her dearest companions and comrades in arms. They had to know the truth.

“So I sent Alistair to her. Basically, I forced him to be with Morrigan. He was so reluctant.” She smiled weakly at the memory. “But he could see the hope there, too … that we both could be alive after battle with the Archdemon. That neither one of us would have to watch the other absorb the power of the Old God and then be destroyed by it. If we could not have our love, at least we could have the knowledge that the other was still living … out there … somewhere.”

“But what happened to that power,” Wynne pressed her, “the power of the Old God that was released when the form of the dragon was destroyed?”

Rhoane sighed and looked down at the tips of her slippers sticking out from underneath the new, courtly robes she was wearing for the occasion of Alistair and Anora’s dual marriage and coronation. They were a jarring sight, after so many months of sturdy leather boots and mud splashed helter-skelter across the front of her robes. They were brightly embroidered with rows of beadwork and metallic stitching. Perhaps she could keep them hidden away in her pack as a memory of Alistair. But first, she had to get through this moment with her friends.

“Morrigan said that the new being within her would create an irresistible draw for the Old God’s … consciousness. Because the child was barely formed, with no real power of its own as it lay within her womb, the Old God would choose it as a vessel that it could occupy and push out any other hints of consciousness that might try to enter. It would fully be an Old God within a human body.” She sighed and brushed her hands across the court robes where they fell across her own lower abdomen. “And I have to believe that this is what happened, because I am here still. And so is Alistair.”

That icy silence had settled among her friends again. And she could hardly blame them. Until this moment, she wasn’t sure that she had even begun to understand the ramifications of the decision she had made and forced Alistair to accept. He was the father of a child with Morrigan, but the child’s soul was not the one that naturally would have been a part of the baby at the moment of its birth. It was the soul of an Old God — a deity responsible in some way for the blight that Ferelden and its neighbors regularly suffered and the curse of the darkspawn. She was glad that Morrigan had disappeared after that final battle, glad that she had taken herself and her child-to-be as far away from all of those people she had supposedly felt were her friends.

“Well, good riddance to bad rubbish is all I have to say about that,” Wynne broke in sharply, her voice dismissing Morrigan as easily as the breath passed between her lips. “But that isn’t what we were looking for you to talk about, Rhoane. We want to discuss with you the possibility …”

“Of a cure!” Leliana could hardly contain herself, now that they were back to the subject that they had intended to discuss with the Grey Warden this entire time. “We have discovered so many wonders on our journeys with you. The Sacred Urn of Andraste’s Ashes …” She whispered the last words fervently, her zealous capitalization of each word evident in her tone, her eyes lost in what to her was a holy memory.

“The Anvil of the Void,” Wynne started to tick off their discoveries and achievements, much in the same way she would list ingredients for a healing potion. “Shale and Cadash Thaig. The breaking of the werewolves’ curse …”

“The skillful — and may I say, very flexible — attentions, “Zevran interjected in a low voice that he probably thought only the Grey Warden could hear, “of the lovely ladies and gentlemen of the Pearl here in Denerim. Ah, the mind … it boggles.”

The assassin had underestimated Wynne’s long years of listening to the whispers of her students in study, or he had meant for her to hear all along. Rhoane couldn’t decide. “You may keep your lascivious pursuits quite to yourself, Zevran,” Wynne scolded him.

“But dear Wynne, do you not see,” he teased the elder mage, “you have forced me into this life of lasciviousness? You, yourself.”

“In no way …” she began only to be cut off by Zevran’s voice.  
“Yes, you! If only you had allowed me … if only once …” continued the elf, “ to rest my head upon your most excellent and understanding bosom, I am certain that all the lewdness you so regularly declaim would have been completely driven from my body. But no, it has not been so. And thus, here am I.”

Wynne gaped at him, her mouth slack, her eyes unbelieving. Both Leliana and Zevran looked like they were about to burst into laughter, but the bard pressed their argument forward.

“So we had thought, Rhoane,” she blurted into the quiet, “that between your gifts as a Grey Warden and your abilities to walk the Fade as a mage, perhaps you could find a cure for all of the wardens.” She slipped up next to her friend and slid her arm around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly. “But most especially, for Alistair.”


	2. Part One -- Chapter Two

She leaned against the door of the storeroom and let the bone-deep exhaustion sweep over her. She was alone again — well, alone except for her Mabari, who often reacted to her like he understood every word and emotion she ever expressed. In gratitude, she slipped down onto the floor beside him, completely ignoring the wrinkling of her dress and the dust that was attaching itself to the material, and laid down with her head and shoulders against Noble’s warm, massive body. She closed her eyes – to think more clearly, she told herself.

Because her friends had given her a lot to think about. What if it were possible to cure the curse that the Grey Wardens brought upon themselves by drinking the blood of the darkspawn during the Joining Ceremony? That blood mage they had found at Soldier’s Peak … Avernine … Avernet … Avernus! Yes, that was it: Avernus. He had been researching ways to improve the Grey Wardens’ power through his study of their blood. Could she get him to focus on curing the Grey Wardens completely of the taint that they accepted into themselves when they joined the order?

For some reason, she doubted it. Avernus had never even expressed a moment’s regret for the brave Grey Wardens he had sacrificed in the name of his research: anything for the cause, he had said to her. He had accepted banishment from the order and even had exiled himself to that tower in the old keep, staying well away from the Dryden family and the trade they were establishing there. But regret? No: he still believed that he was pursuing something greater for the Grey Wardens, something that would bring him and the order back in a glorious revival. She snorted derisively, causing Noble to shift beneath her. Opening her eyes, she found the hound looking over his shoulder at her and smiled gently.

“Sorry, buddy,” she apologized. “Didn’t mean to disturb your rest.”

The Mabari let his mouth open – to Rhoane, it looked like he was smiling at her – until his tongue lolled between his teeth and started to drip saliva on the stone floor of the storeroom. She laughed at the dog, shifting until she was lying on her side with her back pressed against the reassuring warmth of the Mabari. She closed her eyes again and let herself finally sleep.

She was awakened later by the thrumming of Noble’s growl against her back. The candle that Zevran had lit had fizzled out, the melting wax finally overcoming the power of the flame to stay alight. With the quickness she had learned from those many months on the road with her friends, she slipped into a low crouch and dragged her staff into her hand. With a quiet word, she created a glowing light that circled her head and at least gave her some idea of where everything was in the cramped room. Noble continued to growl as the door slid open and someone stepped inside.

“Oh, thank the Maker, I’ve finally found you,” Alistair said, peering around the wood of the door.

She was up in an instant, her staff falling to the floor with a rattling clatter, the ball of light that had encircled her whiffing out and sinking them both back into complete darkness. She didn’t aim for Alistair: she ran straight toward the door, pushing it closed behind her lover with all her might. “Noble! Guard!” she commanded her dog, stepping away from the door so that the Mabari could take her place. It was only then that she turned and flung herself into Alistair’s arms.

He was cold, still wrapped completely in Cailan’s — the former king and Alistair’s half-brother’s — discarded and recovered armor, but she didn’t care. He was hard, the forged and gilded metal bruising against her skin, but all she could think about was how much she wanted him. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, urging him with her soft moans and the pull of her muscles to lift her to his lips, let them meet, let her melt into the passion that he always roused deep within her. She sighed gratefully as he seemed to understand, his hands slipping among the folds of her robes, seeking the hem, and then rising toward her waist with the fabric wrapped between his fingers. At last, his hands closed crushingly under her buttocks, lifting her so that her legs could wrap around the narrowest part of his armor. Their lips touched and opened, tongues flying out and dancing against each other. She ran her fingers up through the close-cropped hair on the back of his skull – grateful that he had left his helmet somewhere else – and felt him shiver at her caress. Her teeth found one of his earlobes and the side of his neck, and she nipped and sucked at the softer flesh of her warrior king.

“Rhoane,” he moaned, his mouth against her hair.

“Shut up, Alistair,” she ordered, her teeth sinking into the side of his neck in a punishing bite. “Shut up and take off this stupid armor. I curse the day we ever decided to go back and find it.”

“But don’t you think,” he murmured, his voice grating with his passion. She could hear his need for her in the rasp of his whisper. “That it makes me look more kingly … more manly?”

She pushed her shoulders away from his body, unable to see him in the gloom but knowing he was there in front of her, resting her weight in his hands with complete confidence. “I think it makes you look like the bloody Urn of Andraste’s Sacred Ashes, if you want to know the truth. The parts of a person, wrapped up in a cold metal jar. Take it off!” she hissed at him.

She wanted to scream in her frustration. There was nothing here for her to touch except for the neck and head that rose from between the cuirass and pauldrons of his armor. She wanted — nay, needed — more: every inch of him. Now! While they had this secret moment, guarded by her Mabari, where no one was likely to find them. If anyone was even looking. Oh, sweet Maker, please let them all be busy elsewhere.

Alistair chuckled; she could feel the gentle shake of his body against hers, even with all that metal and padding between them. “There is one slight problem, my dearest love,” he said softly to her, letting his lips slip gently across hers and sending shivers up and down her spine. “Unfortunately, I cannot hold you in my arms and remove this twice-cursed armor at the same time.”

She leaned forward again, capturing his lips with her own, kissing him hard and pulling him closer against her body with all her strength. Reluctantly, she released his mouth and let her legs slide from around his waist and toward the floor, her arms easing their stranglehold on his neck. His hands, still clutching her bottom in a grip that she was sure would give her bruises for weeks to come, pressed her more tightly against the metal that covered his loins, and she could feel him searching in the darkness for her lips.

“Take it off,” she hissed again, wrenching her body from his arms and back against the barrels. She felt the one that she bumped against totter, and a wooden crate that she had noticed earlier — not that she remembered whether there was anything in it now — toppled with a crash to the floor beside her. Noble growled, and she quickly hushed him.

“Now you’ve done it,” Alistair joked. “They’ll find me for certain with all the noise you’re making.”

Feigning anger, she pushed against his shoulder. “You have yet to hear the noises that I am capable of, your majesty, when given sufficient reason to make them.”

She heard Alistair growl deep in his throat and danced away from him, keeping the feel of the barrels against one hip. She remembered vaguely where Zevran had found his candle earlier and groped in the darkness until she found what she was looking for. Carefully channeling the barest flicker of her fire ability, she set the candle alight and turned to face her lover.

Alistair, who had reached up to slip loose the buckle at one shoulder of his cuirass, paused when the light came up, staring at her in what she felt was a strange mixture of longing and confusion. “Maker’s breath,” he gasped out, “you are so beautiful. Even more beautiful than that moment when I watched you walk away from me to face the Archdemon, fearing that Morrigan’s ritual had been a lie. Fearing that I was to lose you forever.” His hands slipped from the straps, and he sank to his knees on the floor in front of her. She heard a small, desperate sob echo around the closeness of the storeroom. Two quick steps brought her in front of Alistair, and her hands reached out gently to cup his face. Tilting it up toward her, she saw the glister of tears on his lashes and bent toward him to press her lips against the tender flesh of his lids, one kiss for each eye. Alistair’s mail-clad arm wrapped around her buttocks, and he pressed one cheek against the warmth of her belly. Gently, steadily, she ran her fingers through his hair, waiting, giving him the time he needed to recover.

Eventually she heard him sigh and felt him start to pull away from their embrace. She stilled him by pressing his head against her body and whispered into the darkness, “And you still haven’t taken that cursed armor off!”

She heard Alistair chuckle softly and let him pull away this time when he moved back from her. He rose to his feet and mechanically started working the clasps that held the armor together, his years of Chantry training and hard practice evident as the pieces quickly piled together on the floor. Equally as mechanically, Rhoane repositioned each piece as neatly as she could. Alistair had never journeyed with a page, so she had learned early in their travels that it was wiser to simply organize things for him so that they could be reached and refitted as quickly as possible. He had expressed his gratitude many times on the road, and the old habit helped her calm the throbbing need that was raging inside of her. The motions reminded her of the foolish hope that she had entertained, deep in the nights in their meager campsites, that he and she were an old, married couple, together on their land, alone save for each other. She smiled at the gauntlet she was arranging and turned to face him.

At last, this was her Alistair, the lover she had found in the darkness of the wilds, in the light of their campfire and the loneliness of their battle against the darkspawn. He stood before her in only his drawers, the candlelight flickering across his heavily muscled torso and the little frown that had settled between his eyes.

“Have I taken too long?” he asked quietly. “Do you no longer desire me?”

In reply, she smiled at him gently and let her fingers slip to the ties that held her robes together. Without looking away from him, she loosed the knots and with a few shakes of her shoulders, the fabric slipped away from her body, leaving her clothed only in her underthings and her beaded slippers. Stepping out from the pile of clothing, she started to lean over to pull off her shoes.

“Allow me, my lady,” Alistair said, kneeling in front of her and lifting one of her feet between his hands. His strong fingers slipped between the fabric and her skin, lingering along the arch of her instep, thrilling and tickling her at the same time. She saw Alistair look up at her and smile. He then slipped her thigh over one of his shoulders and pressed his mouth against the joining of her legs.

All the passion that she had felt certain she had tamped down with the mundane arranging of his armor came rushing through her as the heat of his mouth met the heat of her nether flesh. Her fingers flew into his hair, tangling where they could and pressing him against her, hard and fast. Oh, Anora, the thought flew through her mind, the joys you will discover in the arms of this man.

Ruthlessly, she pushed the idea out of her mind. Curse the queen of Ferelden. Curse the Landsmeet and the Circle of Magi. Curse the Grey Wardens and duty and obligation. Curse them all.

She felt Alistair’s mouth move against her, away from the hot wetness where her need pulsed, and she looked down at him. In the deep shadows created by the single candle, she watched him use his mouth and the hand that was not supporting her thigh upon his shoulder to untie her drawers. His eyes glimmered in the candlelight, mischievous and somehow daring, as they met hers.

“You wear entirely too much clothing, my lady mage,” he whispered up at her. She felt the drawstring that held that garment in place loosen, and the fabric slipped down across her hips. Alistair looked away from her, his face buried against the curve of her abdomen, his chin pressing the linen of her new underclothing away from her skin. His tongue trailed across her flesh, and his hot breath sighed against her, a wind of burning desire. She felt the hand that was supporting her thigh on his shoulder reach for her buttock and the hard press of his strong fingertips into her flesh there. Yes, bruises, she thought. Weeks and weeks of bruises.

Alistair’s tongue still played across her burning flesh, licking in delightfully arousing circles, biting and sucking at the tender curves of her hips and the exposed flesh of that one thigh. She sighed above him, her hands wrapped around his head, her hips pressing forward against the hard planes of his face.

And suddenly, he wasn’t there. He dropped her leg from his shoulder and stood up in front of her, his fingers tangling in the fabric of her breast binding and stripping it from her body in one easy motion. Because he had dropped her thigh, her drawers slipped completely from her hips and pooled around her feet, leaving her naked in the flicker of the candlelight. Rhoane heard the tear of fabric as Alistair carelessly ripped away his own under-things and reached to pull her against the hardness of his manhood. She moaned and pressed herself against him, loving the harsh scrape of his chest hair against her nipples and the need of him against her belly. Their lips clung together, and they eased themselves toward the floor where she let Alistair settle himself onto his back and scoop her up onto his chest. Their flesh united, and they strove together, locked in another battle – this one against the loneliness and loss that loomed before them as surely as the Archdemon ever had. In the flickering light, they moaned each other’s names, their bodies shuddering together in that ultimate joining.


	3. Part One -- Chapter Three

Rhoane awoke to the warmth of her Mabari against her back and the cold hardness of the stone floor beneath her. She had fallen asleep again, unable to restrain the waves of exhaustion that flowed over her after her need for Alistair had been satisfied. She brushed her hand down over one hip, feeling the pulse of bruised flesh beneath the velvety softness of her court robes, remembering her lover and the urgent pressure of his fingertips into her skin. She smiled to herself, not quite recalling putting on her own clothing again, but grateful that it was there. She really needed to stop sleeping on such hard floors.

She was tempted to close her eyes and let herself drift off again. After all, no one needed her now, did they? The Maker could watch the world turning for a few moments, couldn’t he? Or he could send Andraste to watch over everyone. Yes, they’d probably all deal with it much better if Andraste returned from her funeral pyre and took care of them. Just a few more moments, even if they were here on the stone-cold storage room floor. But then Noble started to growl.

“I’m telling you that I tried the latch last night,” she heard a voice in the corridor complaining — a very tense, female voice, “more than once. It’s either stuck or something has fallen in that chaos of barrels and crates and is blocking the door.”

She heard a rattle of metal against metal – probably someone looking through a set of keys. Some of that same metal scraped against the lock plate on the door and into the keyhole, grinding as the mechanism was rotated: locked then unlocked. Someone in the corridor lifted the latch, saying, “See. Nothing. It will not op- —”

The door swung easily inward, and the person who had been the audience to these complaints snickered and just as quickly suppressed the noise. “The door seems to have repaired itself, Queen Anora,” a man’s voice came to Rhoane through the opening. “If there is any other maintenance work that you need …”

“Yes, yes,” Anora replied, testily. “On your way.”

Anora. The voice finally registered in the Grey Warden’s conscious mind. The queen of Ferelden. Oh, Maker’s breath, she thought, I have to face her now?

Rhoane sprang to her feet and swiped a hand through her raven’s wing black hair. She was smoothing her skirts when the queen stepped into the storeroom, curiously surveying its contents, including the Grey Warden mage. She watched Anora start when their eyes met and saw the queen’s eyes take in every inch of her disheveled hair and clothing. Oh, thank the Maker, she thought, that she had gotten back into her robes somehow last night.

“Grey Warden?” Anora greeted her warily.

“Your majesty,” Rhoane replied, bowing awkwardly and then looking around for her staff.

“Your assigned chamber wasn’t to your liking, I take it,” the queen sniffed and stepped more deeply into the room. Rhoane watched as she looked around at the barrels and crates that were stored in the room. A dreadful suspicion settled like a cloak around the Grey Warden: the queen was looking for Alistair.

“I apologize, your majesty,” she replied, snatching up her staff from where it was leaning in a corner and slipping it over her shoulder. “I’m afraid that I sneaked away from the festivities yesterday and accidentally fell asleep in my hiding place. I’ve only now awoken and should be off to my chamber.”

“Stay a moment, please,” the queen said, holding up a hand. Rhoane stopped her headlong flight toward her room and nodded toward the queen. “I don’t suppose that you have seen his majesty, King Alistair, this morning, have you?”

Shaking her head, the Grey Warden looked down at the hem of her robe where it brushed just above the tops of her feet. That’s funny, she thought, I used to have two shoes. One on that foot and one on the foot …

That Alistair had used to toss her thigh up over his shoulder before brushing his lips across her abdomen. The thought made the heat of passionate memory rise up into her cheeks. She looked up at the queen, panic rising in her gut. She must know, the mage thought, she has to know.

“I also seem to have lost another slipper,” she stammered, hoping that excuse would explain why she was blushing so fiercely in front of Anora. She heard Noble rise and felt him bump against her thigh. Instinctively, she reached down to pull at his ears. Noble …

“Noble!” she exclaimed, putting as much teasing accusation into her voice as she could. “Have you been playing with my shoes again?”

Thank the Maker, she thought, when her hound leaped between her and the queen and started wagging his tail excitedly. He pranced and posed around the small room, yipping his excitement at the idea of playing, until he heard Anora laugh, settling in front of her with his tongue dangling out of the side of his mouth, his head tipped as if trying to understand the joke. The queen cautiously reached out and patted him on the head.

“It is quite naughty of you,” the queen scolded the Mabari hound gently, “to make off with a lady’s slippers. Especially ones that were so specifically made at the king’s command.” Rhoane watched as Noble’s ears drooped and heard him whine gently. Anora laughed again and continued, “But I suppose you could be forgiven just this once.” Leaning down toward the hound, she pretended to whisper to him. “They were exceedingly lovely.”

Rhoane swallowed and looked up to find the queen regarding her steadily again, a strange smile twisting across her lips. “Will you walk with me, Grey Warden?” the queen inquired.

“Really, your highness, I should be getting to my room so that I can freshen up,” the mage replied.

Anora nodded, saying, “I will walk with you. At least to your chamber.”

The Grey Warden swallowed again and lied to the queen, “It would be my privilege, your majesty.”

She allowed Anora to precede her into the corridor, then grasped the Mabari’s collar in her fist and tugged him after her. She could swear, just by looking at his face, that he was laughing at her and feeling pretty smug about the way that he had just saved her from further embarrassment with the queen. He yipped softly at her and stepped into the hallway to amble in the direction of her chambers.

“Alistair seems to have survived his coronation,” Anora was saying to the mage as they trailed after the Mabari. “And his wedding to me. I can understand that it might be a lot for one man to absorb in a day. Fortunately for us all, he is adjusting.”

“Really, your majesty?” Rhoane blurted out her question before she had time to think. “Because you seem to have lost him.”

The queen laughed and replied, “Only for the moment, my dear Grey Warden. I’m certain I will be able to locate him somewhere in the castle … or on the grounds.”

The Grey Warden sighed inwardly and mentally began to loosen the threads that bound her to Alistair. After all, the queen was his wife, in the eyes of the Maker and under the laws of Ferelden. She could no longer claim any right to his attention, his presence … or even his love.

“His templar training has given him a steady commitment to physical conditioning, your majesty,” she suggested to the woman walking at her side. “When we weren’t actually battling the darkspawn, he would spend at least half of the morning practicing with Sten or Oghren. They developed quite a routine among them. Bash each other nearly unconscious … slay some darkspawn … sleep like the dead and snore like Mabari.”

Noble stopped, looked over his shoulder at her, and snorted disapprovingly. She smiled and waved at him to keep walking.

Anora sighed and said, “Yes, I suppose I should have looked there first. But I came to our marital bed so late last night …” Rhoane felt something shrink inside her at Anora’s words, but she forced her face to remain calm and politely interested when the queen continued. “… And he was so pleasantly accommodating in his attentions to me. You know, of course, that no one bothered with all the usual ceremony that accompanies a royal marriage, because I had been wed to Cailan.”

Rhoane murmured something appropriate and looked down the hallway. Surely her chambers were just up here on the left? Oh Maker, couldn’t they be there now?

“So we didn’t need to worry about anyone having to watch our first union.” Anora started to giggle. “Poor Cailan. It completely unmanned him to have the Revered Mother standing at the foot of our bed that first night together. I had to drive them all to the other side of the door in order to get him back into the mindset to even try.”

The Grey Warden could feel herself flushing again. Damn it, she was a grown woman now, not some child to be embarrassed by the realities of living.

“You’re embarrassed by my honesty,” Anora said, and she saw the queen’s eyes lingering on her face. “And I had thought that you were so much more a woman of the world.”

“W-within the Circle of Magi,” she stammered, trying desperately to add to the queen’s misconception of her embarrassment, “we are practically forbidden from seeking close physical and emotional relationships. I suppose it’s as bad as spending your life as a cloistered sister of the Chantry. I emerged from the Tower with no … practical … knowledge of intimacy.”

“I see,” the queen replied and stopped beside the Mabari who was waiting in front of the door to her chambers. “I would have to say that Alistair was very eager, if not as … artistic … in his approach as someone of my station might actually desire. But leagues ahead of Cailan in every way.”

“I wouldn’t know, your majesty,” Rhoane lied in a gentle whisper, reaching across her hound to open the door for him, her face firmly turned away from the queen. At least Anora would most likely blame her new blush on her celibate life in the Tower, not the guilt that rushed through her at every word the queen spoke.

“Really?” the queen murmured back at her. “You never personally heard anything there in your camp? You traveled with quite an assortment of warriors. Surely one of them caught his attention?”

Rhoane looked desperately down the hall, but the queen and she were completely alone. Anora was relentless! And unless she escaped from the queen’s presence, she was certain that one of her closely guarded secrets would escape. She looked into the welcoming gloom of her sitting room, finding the outline of her Mabari against the glow that emanated from the fireplace. His head was tucked against his body in his usual sleeping position. No help there.

“In any event,” Anora said briskly, “here is your chamber. I hope you find it more comfortable than the floor of that storeroom.”

Rhoane thanked the queen and stepped into her room, intent on closing the door on the entire interview. But the queen continued speaking.

“Oh, by the way, Alistair and I were discussing some matters last night when we were in bed, and your name came up.” The queen arched one eyebrow at her and continued, “We’d like to see you in our council room after lunch this afternoon.”


	4. Part One -- Chapter Four

For the second time in as many days, Rhoane found herself leaning heavily against the inside of a door that she had just closed behind her. Maybe it was time for her to head out into the wilderness again, she thought, because there was nothing easy or comfortable about living inside these stony walls … with Alistair only a few doors – and many, many leagues – away from her. She levered herself off the wood and crossed quickly to the cord that she could use to summon the woman who had been assigned to wait on her while she was in the castle. When the young elf arrived, she asked for a bath and something hot to drink. It was already too late in the day for any breakfast, and she and her companions were used to quick bites along the road, as opposed to the daily feasting that nobles of Ferelden seemed to enjoy. It would be enough until she was summoned for luncheon.

The maid returned with a train of servants in her wake, each one burdened with some other unique accoutrement of the bathing rituals of the upper classes of the kingdom. With a quick flip of her hand, she shooed her Mabari away from the fire – his private domain in her room – and motioned for the servants to begin their arrangements on the hearth. She watched from the corner of her eye as a copper tub was placed on the rug and a large kettle was hung on a swinging arm and maneuvered over the leaping and licking flames. A progression of servants entered and poured bucket after bucket of water into the tub until finally there were no more of them. Her maid levered the kettle away from the fire and poured some of the now-boiling water in with the rest. Looking over at the Grey Warden, she timidly asked, “A scent, my lady? What do you prefer?”

Wet dog and sweat-laden templar, she mused, but answered the elf, “Whatever you think is best.” Then a thought struck her, and she added, “But nothing that the queen uses regularly. I shouldn’t want people to think that I believed I could match her majesty on any level of beauty or civility.”

The maid nodded and began pouring oils and sprinkling dried herbs into the water. Swirling her hand through the liquid and its aromatic ingredients, she inhaled the scent that the water released and rose from the rug. Rhoane watched as the elf crossed to her and held out both hands. Confused, the Grey Warden frowned.

“Shall I help you undress, my lady?” the elf asked politely.

The mage almost laughed in the maid’s face. Help her undress! For Andraste’s sake, she had been ripping her robes on and off by herself — for the most part — for months on end now. And no one helped an initiate at the Circle Tower clamber in and out of her clothing when she was late for class. She was perfectly capable of dressing herself.

And then there were the bruises. Servants spread gossip faster than the darkspawn bred — at least that was what she had heard from some of her companions. She would do nothing — at least not now nor in the future — to give the servants any reason to believe that she wasn’t just another unattached, completely loyal, young warrior in service to her king. Oh, no! In service to Ferelden. Yes, Ferelden first.

“Thank you, no,” she told the maid, smiling gently to reassure her. “I’m very used to dressing and bathing myself. We had special facilities in the Tower, you know, where we were all encouraged to maintain our cleanliness.” At the mention of the Circle Tower where the mages were taught, Rhoane saw the elf’s face become stonily impassive: even the broken Tower could inspire fear in the people who truly did not understand what magic could accomplish. Like destroying an Archdemon. “You may leave me.”

The maid dipped a quick curtsey, picked up the basket of oils and herbs, and raced out of the room as if a pack of darkspawn were on her heels, pulling the door closed behind her. The mage sighed as the latch clicked into place and began to remove the ceremonial robes that she had been wearing for most of an entire day. In her small clothes, she sat down on the bed and reached down to slip off the one shoe still left from the beautiful pair that had come with her formalwear. She lifted it closer to her eyes, studying the pattern of the beads and threads. Was she imagining it, she thought, or did the design on this one side, just here, look exactly like two hearts entwined with each other? She laughed at her own folly, slipped out of her undergarments and into the heated waters in the tub. Closing her eyes, she slipped under the surface and let the warmth soothe her every ache … except the one in her heart.

Scrubbed and dressed in her “working” robes — oh, how many sets she had seen destroyed while fighting the darkspawn! — she entered the dining room and took a place among those who remained from her party of adventurers. Bodhan was tempting Sandal to eat by cutting his portions into amusing shapes. Sten looked particularly uncomfortable in a chair that barely seemed like it would support his weight, but he was speaking softly with Leliana – probably about some teaching from the Qun that directly opposed the beliefs of the bard’s dear Chantry. Oghren, for some reason, had two tankards in front of him and quickly directed anything that looked at all like a vegetable away from his plate with a sour grunt and a shake of his bushy head. Wynne was frowning at Zevran, trying to reform him to the last, the Grey Warden conjectured, but there was a pleased twitch to her lips that implied she was enjoying herself despite the outrageous gambits the assassin was certainly playing.

Shale was not there: she didn’t need to eat and specifically despised the “smackings and gobblings of all fleshy beings.” Morrigan had fled days ago.

And Alistair … the mage watched as he rose, even as she was approaching her companions, and followed his uncle out of the dining hall. She had to admit to herself: Alistair was gone, too. Their party of merry — or would it be more accurate to say “deadly”? — adventurers was disbanded. Even she would have to move on eventually — undoubtedly the sooner, the better.

She chatted with her friends easily, listening to them discuss their plans and recall small details of their adventures that made them all — well, except maybe Sten — laugh. And then they teased him about that, and for a moment, Rhoane thought she saw a tiny smile on that determined face. For a moment — and then it was gone.

Zevran was telling them about one of his seemingly endless missions for the Crows — something about a miller’s daughter and three oxen — when a servant stepped up to her side. “If you could follow me, Grey Warden,” he muttered next to her ear. “The king and queen request your presence.”

King — and queen? she wondered. Nodding slowly, she rose from her place among her companions. They all looked at her, expecting her to lead them out again, she supposed. Smiling gently, she said, “Time for more politics, I guess. I will be with you all again soon.”

She followed the man through hallways and staircases until they came to the king’s war room, where the servant let her pass in front of him and silently closed the door behind her. Nothing like having your fate sealed for you, she thought and walked farther into the chamber.  
She knew it was unwise to look specifically for Alistair from the moment she stepped into the room. Someone would notice the dart of her eyes among the heads and the calm lingering that overtook them when they rested on his face. Someone might say that she had moved much too quickly to the king’s side, when he had not acknowledged her presence, even as she diverted herself toward some of the leaders of the Landsmeet who nodded slightly in her direction. And Anora … the Maker himself was the only one who knew what the queen saw and assumed about her relationship with Alistair. She had certainly tried to make it clear to the Grey Warden this morning what the queen expected from her relationship with the new king. Rhoane stepped quietly behind a group of what looked like military advisors and clasped her hands behind her back to wait.

The tight groups of men and women flowed in front of her like tiny wavelets splashing against the beaches near the harbor of Denerim. Some reformed and surged away to be replaced by other advisors and supplicants to the throne, but eventually, most of them had their moment of breaking across the sand of Alistair and Anora’s good graces, and Rhoane was left standing alone where she had been since she entered, patiently waiting and sneaking glimpses of the king’s face when she was certain no one was looking in her direction. Maker! how different he looked here in sunlight of his war room, his brow creased as he considered the arguments of the advisors gathered across from him! Gone was the young templar who wanted to be led and have his decisions made for him. Here was a man, a warrior, and a king whom anyone would be proud to follow.

“I still think that on this matter,” Alistair was saying to the men who stood against him on whatever decision he was trying to gain consensus, “that the experience of a Grey Warden will be the most helpful in aiding you in making your decision.” He looked toward the door and briefly around at the people standing on either side of him. “Darkspawn take her, I sent for her hours ago.”

Rhoane started to step forward, but then Anora’s voice floated toward her, buoyed on a musical laugh. “And she’s been here for hours, your majesty,” the queen said, stepping up to Alistair and placing her hand over his in a way that the Grey Warden could only describe as possessive. She lifted her palm from the back of the king’s hand, letting her fingertips linger on his skin and stroking them gently up toward his wrist. Using one tapering finger, Anora pointed to where Rhoane was standing among the shadows. “Here is your compatriot, your majesty,” she gurgled, taking some perverse delight in the fact that Alistair hadn’t noticed her there among the crowd in all this time.

“Right … well,” the king muttered, the frown deepening on his brow. He waved his hand toward Rhoane, beckoning for her to approach him but staring intently at the map spread on the table before him. He explained the contention to her, asked several pointed questions, and told her to add any important information that the landholders should know. It was all very professional and business-like. It made her heart crack into tiny pieces.

“Gentlemen,” Anora finally interrupted their bickering, “I believe that should be all for today. We are expected at dinner within the hour, and the king and I have some private instructions for this Grey Warden. If you would excuse us …” she gracefully gestured toward the door, nodding politely at the bows from the arls and military commanders. Alistair ignored them, throwing himself back heavily into the chair that he had not used for even a moment while Rhoane had been there. Anora crossed to his side and laid her hand on the top of his head.

“Perhaps a short nap, your majesty,” she suggested. “We can make our appearance at dinner whenever you are ready.”

The Grey Warden watched her king shift his head away from his wife’s hand, a testy frown pressing his brows together over his long, straight nose. The queen sighed and looked over at the mage. “I’ll leave you to break the news to the Grey Warden yourself, Alistair. Do not be tardy to change for dinner. If you will not nap, we have no excuse for being late.” She crossed to the door and paused, looking back over her shoulder at the pair of Grey Wardens beside the table. A small smile spread slowly across her face, which only Rhoane saw, and then she was gone.

The mage stood silently beside the table, watching as Alistair stared in front of him, his eyes unfocused, his brows drawn together. Morrigan used to say that his face looked like that when he was deeply considering some choice — like whether to wear his smelly socks or his very smelly socks on a certain day. She would have to get him to focus on her, if she had any hope of getting information out of him now.

“News?” she asked, her voice more harsh and edgy than she had intended for it to sound. “What news, your majesty?”

The king sighed and pressed one hand against his eyes. “I’m so happy to see you, too, Rhoane,” he murmured. “Look, I’ve been standing around for hours today. You could at least offer to rub my feet or bring me a some wine.”

Her crisp bark of laughter echoed around the room. “On your feet for hours?” the Grey Warden questioned him, her voice angry and accusing. “You’ve walked for days in less comfortable footwear than those silly leather half-boots and with a mere hour’s rest between marches. And you’re telling me that standing around on a plush Orlesian carpet has made you tired? I slept on a Maker-forsaken floor last night,” she continued, her anger mounting, uncontrollable. “And from what I understand from the queen — your wife — you certainly enjoyed your first foray into the marriage bed. ‘Leagues ahead of Cailan in every way.’” She tried to imitate Anora’s higher pitched, more refined way of speaking and failed. Sputtering to a stop, she tried to hold herself together, digging her fingertips into the flesh of her upper arms in an attempt to control the rage inside of her. Control. It meant the difference between a mage who could channel the energies of the world around her and one who was transformed by them into a demonic being ruled by passion and evil. She stared steadily across the room at the door.

Until Alistair said, “She said that, did she? Well, well, well …”

Her head snapped in his direction, and she saw that he was peeking at her from between his finger. He had done it on purpose! He had made her angry, driven her to say those outrageous things, just because he could. The anger inside of her flashed back into a roaring fire, and she quickly crossed to the door, intent on leaving the king sitting, stupefied, in his chair.

She hadn’t counted on Alistair’s quick reflexes, however; he was at the door nearly at the same moment she reached for the pull, his broad hand pressing the wood firmly into the frame. Grinding her teeth together, she growled up at him, “Please allow me to pass, your majesty.”

“Please allow me to tell you that you smell like a field of wildflowers, my love,” he whispered, his lips gently brushing the curve of her ear, just at the place where she had tucked away all the errant strands of her hair. “And that I apologize for upsetting you so.”

“I …” She swallowed to press down the melting sensation that spread through her at the steady huff of his breath against the side of her face. Her hand fell away from the door pull as her chin dropped, her eyes closing to block the sight of Alistair’s strong hand, the castle, all of the world. It wasn’t hers: it could never be hers. Their time together was a pleasant dream that was turning into a nightmare before she could even start to scream. “I can’t, your majesty,” she whispered back at him.

“You can’t what, my one and only love?” the king replied, his lips leaving a trail of kisses down the side of her throat. Maker take her for thinking she should put her hair up after her bath! She’d only given him access to a part of the body that he could use most effectively against her. Turning quickly on her heel, she walked back toward the chair that Alistair had been occupying. Thankfully, he followed her almost immediately — and did not stop to lock the door.

She pressed him back down into his chair and slipped away when his arms reached out to embrace her. If she had stayed where she was, she would have ended up in his lap, her head peacefully resting on his shoulder and his hands roaming where they would across her body. Oh, Anora would certainly have walked in then! They were dancing through a field decorated with traps of every description: she, for one, would not allow them to be snared. She walked around to where his advisors had stood, on the opposite side of the table from him, and crossed her arms over her breasts.

“So, she really said that I was better than Cailan?” he asked again, his eyes twinkling at her, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“I believe that she referred to you as ‘pleasantly accommodating’ in your attentions,” she reported. She’d been present in military briefings: she was only relaying available intelligence. At least that was what she tried to tell herself, while the pieces of her heart shattered once again. Unwilling to allow him to feel too good about the positive impression he had made on the queen, she added, “She did mention that you were not as … how did she say it … artistic … as someone of her station might expect.”

“Artistic?” he exploded, needled in his pride just as she knew he would be. He sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward, seeming ready to pounce on her at any moment. “What in all the darkspawn-infested tunnels of the Deep Roads does she mean by that? Artistic? Who has been showing her artistry in his lovemaking? Certainly not our departed king. As she keeps telling me, she’d been running the kingdom for him day and night while he chased after some childish dream of glory. When did she have time?”

She rushed to calm his suspicions. “As Leliana would undoubtedly tell you, ladies do like to talk. And I’m certain that your …” she almost said “wife,” but stopped herself. “That your queen has been surrounded by a vast assortment of ladies of a certain station who are able to indulge their most … unusual … appetites.”

Alistair shrugged back into the chair. “Oh, I suppose you’re right about that,” he admitted, his fingers slipping through the hair above his forehead. He dropped his hands into his lap and started staring fixedly in front of him again.

She waited where she was, fighting against the urge to rush to his side and comb her long fingers through his hair, too. She knew him well enough to understand how deeply troubled he was by something. The news he had to share with her? Probably. She would let him work up the courage to tell her, even if it did mean that she suffered through her need to hold and comfort him.

“Come here,” he snapped at her finally, his eyes focused on her face at last.

She snapped back, “No.”

“Come here, please,” he whispered to her, holding one of his hands out toward her.

She shook her head and repeated, “No.”

“Please,” he whispered again, “please come to me, my dearest love.”

“Oh, by the Maker, Alistair,” she hissed at him, “I have told you no. Three times, no. Do not test my patience further, or you might wind up with your eyebrows singed away from your face.”

The confidence slipped away from his face, leaving him looking like the sad, frightened Grey Warden who had walked with her out of the Korcari Wilds and into Lothering. “Do you not still love me?” he asked in a small, uncertain voice.

“Andraste’s soiled knickers,” she cursed at him, using one of the more colorful expressions they had heard during their adventures. Lowering her voice, she continued, “I have loved you from the instant I first laid eyes on you. I love you in this moment, and I will probably love you until the day that I die. But right now you are trying my patience like … like an entire thaig of dwarves.” 

He smiled at her reference to their troubles recruiting the dwarven kingdom into the battle with the darkspawn and the Archdemon. “I will apologize for being such an enormous trial to you,” he said softly, “if you will only come closer to me.”

She arched one eyebrow at him and took one tiny step to her right.

His smile deepened. “Please. Just close enough so that I can breathe in that intoxicating scent that you are bathed in.”

She relented — how could she not? — and stepped around to his side of the table, stopping out of arm’s reach. She hitched one hip up against the table and balanced there — one foot swinging freely to and fro — continuing to study his face. His smiled widened so that she could see his strong, straight teeth, and she heard him take in one very deep breath. She watched as his eyes closed.

“I know something is very wrong, Alistair,” she said to him in a low, soothing voice. “And we also both know that you will feel infinitely better if you just tell me what is troubling you.”

He let out his breath in a great sigh and leaned forward again. She watched him clasp his hands together in the space between his knees and avoid her gaze by staring down at them. “Anora has suggested,” he began, “and I have to say that there might be some wisdom in the idea … that the new Grey Warden outpost in Amaranthine might be more successful if a Warden from Ferelden were sent there to oversee its establishment.”

Rhoane gaped at him, her mouth hanging slack in an obvious expression of her surprise. He was sending her away … no, she would not think that! Anora was sending her away from Alistair, separating them with a sure finality that neither she nor her lover would ever be able to attain by themselves. She muttered a few choice curses under her breath — thank the Maker Wynne couldn’t hear her — and remembered the image of Anora’s blood in a great puddle at her and Alistair’s feet that she had conjured up yesterday. Was it only yesterday? It seemed a lifetime ago now.

Alistair was still staring at his hands. She wouldn’t get anything else out of him in the near future.

Rhoane choked back the tears that were pooling in her eyes. When she could control her voice, she said firmly, “As you wish, your majesty.”


	5. Part Two -- Chapter One

The mists closed around her again, disorienting her sense of direction, which caused her to stumble against the rocks at her side. She was searching for something, she could remember that. Something that would help her … clear these mists? Help her to feel like less of a damned fool? She couldn’t remember. And the vapors piled more thickly around her.

“What is your focus?”

She started at the sound of that voice, the voice that she heard every time she tried to press her way through these fogs. “I don’t know! But, by the Maker, you could be bloody well more useful!” She tried to shout it into the gloom, but something caused the words to catch in her throat. She looked around again and just noticed what she thought was the tip of a tower — a strong black tower — wavering in the distance in a break between the swirls. Was that where she was going? To the tower in the distance? To a city … the city … the Black City? Her entire being shuddered at the thought, and the mists swirled again, shutting out the tower from her sight. She started to turn to run, but a new voice throbbed around her, its beat intense and relentless.

“Thrall!” the voices chanted together. “Thrall! Thrall!”

Rhoane woke in her chamber in the Grey Warden’s new keep in Amaranthine, her bedclothes a tangled mess, her pillow in a crumpled pile on the floor. She flipped over to her other side and reached out for the flint to light her bedside candle. The warm glow of the little flame helped her feel better, pressing the memories of her dream back into the darkness.

Not that she wasn’t used to the bad dreams by now. She’d had the ones about the Archdemon — those started shortly after she was Joined to the Grey Wardens. But they had also stopped when the dragon had been destroyed. The darkspawn still muttered on the edges of her consciousness, but they had not recently interrupted her sleep. This dream was different. This dream was new, emotionally charged, and occurring more and more frequently.

The Grey Warden sighed and reached out to pick her pillow up from the floor. Perhaps it was a sign, she tried to reason with herself, a message that she had stayed here in Amaranthine for too many months. That the comfort and support she felt among her fellow Grey Wardens was something — another something — that didn’t belong to her. Punching her fist into the feathery softness of her pillow, she scrunched it into a more comfortable shape and tucked it under her head.

Her mattress sagged slightly on one side, and she glanced over to find Noble’s head resting on the covers. His ears drooped, and his eyes looked at her with a steady regard, seeming almost concerned for her. She had tried leaving the Mabari with Alistair when she had departed for Amaranthine, but the hound had managed to escape the kennels and make his way across country to her side. And she had accepted him once again, just as she had so long ago on the roads out of the Korcari Wilds, because of all he represented of her past. Besides, she thought, he’s a great listener and an equally excellent heat source when she was forced to camp in the wilderness.

The Mabari whined gently at her and flicked his tongue against the hand that was lying on the coverlet closest to him. She turned her head back and forth against the pillow and said, “You certainly know better than that, sir. You’ve been banned from my bed until one of the blacksmiths can figure out how to reinforce the straps enough to take your weight.”

Noble grunted at her and flicked his tongue across her flesh again. She laughed in response.

“No, you silly hound,” she whispered, “no. I do not want to spend the next few nights sleeping on the floor because you have broken the bed frame again.”

Sighing, the hound settled back onto the floor, a little growl drifting up to her in the darkness. Was he actually angry with her for refusing to allow him into her bed? She giggled at the thought and then brought her hands up, her fingers intertwining, to cup the back of her head, trying to remember the details of her dream.

She was searching for something, that she could remember, and all it required from her was … something. Something she felt that she already had in abundance, that she had mastered long ago in her training. And if she could just use this one thing, she would arrive … somewhere … and find what she was looking for. That was it, wasn’t it? That she would discover what she had been missing for so long?

During her early weeks of struggle establishing Vigil’s Keep for the Grey Wardens, she was certain that the missing thing had been Alistair — his touch and his gentle laughter. But the steady demand on her attention had distracted her from her memories of their intimate moments and now, so many months later, when he had yet to visit her or the new Grey Warden base, she had begun to accept that it was over. He had moved on, stepping completely into his role of King of Ferelden.

She had been in the Fade! she suddenly remembered, the image of the mist springing strongly into her mind. But it wasn’t as though she actually was walking there, as she had during her final trial as an apprentice in the Circle Tower. It was more like she was watching the fade through a piece of glass or as a reflection in a mirror. She could see herself and feel her own emotions, but they were remote, separated from her.

As if encased in glass.

Frowning up at the shift of candlelight across her ceiling, she considered how removed she felt from her experience of the Fade. Not that she ever entered the dream realm voluntarily when she slept — she had always had to be transported into the Fade, to be assisted in crossing through the Veil — by the application of lyrium or demon magic. Then her experiences there had seemed completely real, including searing heat and burning cold and the pummeling press of demons against your skin. She tried to remember every step she had taken in her times in the Fade: her final test in the Circle Tower, her rescue of Connor and Arl Eamon, her purge of the demons from the broken Tower of Magi, and, most recently, her struggles in the Blackmarsh and the battle with the Baroness. She had been sent into the Fade each of those times, but she remembered those experiences as being so much more real somehow.

Maybe she just didn’t know enough about the Fade, she wondered. She had always been a good student, but her Joining with the Grey Wardens had ended her research in the Tower’s massive libraries. Maybe Irving could help her understand more.

She rolled onto her stomach so that she could look down at the Mabari in the shadows at the side of her bed. “Noble,” she whispered, “what would you think of going back to visit First Enchanter Irving?” She heard his tail start to thump against the floor.

“And Knight-Commander Greagoir?” The stead thump was replaced by a low growl. Rhoane laughed and shifted back onto her pillow. “I feel the same way,” she muttered and let her eyes drift shut.

She woke later in the morning than usual, but her tardiness worked in her favor: she was actually able to arrange a meeting with both the Seneschal of the Keep and her second in command at the same time. They argued with her about leaving, tried to convince her to take an entire regiment of their most highly trained Grey Wardens (none of whom — with the exception of the reinforcements from Weisshaupt Fortress — had more than a couple of months’ experience under their belts), and demanded to know exactly where she was going and when she would return. Answering their questions as specifically and yet as vaguely as she could, she passed command of the garrison to her second and charged the Seneschal with keeping their relationship with the neighboring landholders and residents of Amaranthine as positive as he could.

Then she slipped away. It was easier this way, she told herself, not being forced to tell each of her new Grey Warden friends that she was leaving. And she would return. Soon, she hoped.

Dressed in the plainest robe she could find and with a pack brimming with field rations and gear, Rhoane slipped between the open edges of the Keep’s front gates and began the long walk back to the Tower of Magi, in the northern part of Lake Calenhad. Noble padded along beside her.


	6. Part Two -- Chapter Two

“My dear!” First Enchanter Irving cried out as he crossed the entry hall, his hands extended toward her. Almost before she could place her own hands in his, she was pulled into a crushing embrace. “You should have told us you were coming.”

He pushed away from her, his hands slipping up to squeeze her shoulder. “You’re certainly looking fit. I would say that life outside the tower with the Grey Wardens has agreed with her, wouldn’t you, Greagoir?” Irving stepped away from Rhoane, turning so that the Knight Commander would have his first look at the former mage and Grey Warden. The stiff, unfailingly proper commander of the templars assigned to “maintain order” at the Circle Tower nodded to Rhoane and muttered a gruff welcome. The Grey Warden wanted to laugh in his face: she knew perfectly well that — to Greagoir — any mage allowed outside of the Circle of Magi and the Tower was a mage who would immediately turn to evil. He was probably plotting how he could lock her into one of the basement cells — without Irving’s knowledge — at this very moment. She smiled broadly at him and returned his greeting.

With one hand under her elbow, Irving led her down the hallway and into the Tower proper. “Become quite the little liar, haven’t we?” he teased her.

She sighed and admitted, “I do what I must. You’ve always known that. To keep the Tower safe. To unite Ferelden. To enthrone a proper king.” She stopped in front of the door of the dormitory where she had once slept with the other hopeful female apprentices. Raising her hand, she moved to lift the latch, when a trio of giggling young women — one of them a dwarf — barreled out. They barely checked their motion and murmured a quick “Your pardon, First Enchanter” before rushing down the hall toward the stairway.

“Yes,” Irving said, stepping out in the same direction as the girls had gone, “your efforts have meant the difference between the utter destruction of the only place I have ever called home and a chance to build something even better.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the giant iron doors that separated the hallway from the entry room. “If only everyone could see things the same way.”

Rhoane followed the First Enchanter until they entered his private study, where he took his place behind the giant wooden desk and motioned for her to sit. Feeling almost like the schoolgirl she had been only too recently, she perched on the edge of the chair opposite Irving and folded her hands in her lap. Noble sauntered up to her side and sat down.

“I have to assume from your appearance, my dear,” the elder mage started, “that this is not essentially a pleasure visit for you?”

She shook her head, saying, “No, First Enchanter. I need to learn more about the Fade.”

“The Fade?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers together just under his chin. “But you have been there yourself. You have experienced its dangers. What more could there be to know?”

“Everything!” she exclaimed, hopping up from her seat and starting to pace around the room. “What it truly is. What the images you encounter there mean. Why demons are drawn to it. And whether …” she stopped moving and faced her former instructor, “whether there is a pathway to the Black City in the Fade.”

Irving’s heavy brows drew together. “The Black City is the result of foolish mages trying to reach for something that was beyond them. It has tainted our world for centuries. Why do you need to know more?”

She moved behind the high-backed chair she had been sitting in and gripped the wood with her fingers. Her knuckles turned white.

“Because someone there is calling to me.”

Rhoane watched as the color drained from the First Enchanter’s face, leaving his skin nearly the same color as the knuckles that were clutching the chair in front of her. His hands sagged away from his face, but the look in his eyes sharpened. Rising from his chair, he crossed to the long table that he kept on one side of his office. The Grey Warden followed him with her eyes, studying his slow steps and the tuck of his head toward his chest. She saw him stop beside what looked like a crystallized flower and reach out to gently caress its glittering petals.

“You are aware, of course,” her former teacher asked, still looking down at the artifact on his table, “that the Chantry — and by association, the mages of the Tower — teach that all beings found in the Fade are creatures of evil? That none of them is to be trusted.”

“Yes, First Enchanter,” she replied, “but equally as importantly, I have traveled with Wynne and her — unique — companion. She was not completely convinced that every spirit of the Fade was evil. She seemed to have encountered … good … there. And to have been saved by it.”

She heard Irving sigh. “She shared her experiences with me briefly,” he admitted, “but I am not sure that I was of the correct mindset to truly hear what she was saying. The creatures of the Fade that we have historically encountered have all been demonic. Volumes in our library record unfortunate interactions between hopeful apprentices of the Tower and the demons they met after crossing through the Veil. There is very little literature to suggest that a spirit from the Fade could be anything except evil.”

“But there are some mentions of it in the library?” she pressed him. “That there are good spirits to be found in the Fade?”

“Perhaps. But there are not enough documented cases for me to allow you to pursue this … dream being … of yours.”

“Not even if I tell you that I’ve met a positive creature from the Fade myself?” she asked.

Irving turned to look at her. “Yourself?”

The Grey Warden sighed and walked over to stand beside her former teacher. Slowly, choosing her words with a delicacy that was rivaled only by the cut perfection of the flower on the table in front of her, Rhoane told the First Enchanter about the spirit from the Fade who had been trapped in a human body, who had taken the name “Justice,” and who had fought the darkspawn with her in the marshes around Amaranthine. Irving listened with polite attention, asking questions that seemed to clarify her meaning when words began to fail.

“Both you and Wynne,” he said when she completed her story. “How I wish she were here now to help us unravel this puzzle.”

Rhoane laughed at that. “You can’t know how much I wish that, too, First Enchanter.” She looked down the table at the collection of bound books and scrolls that created a colorful and slightly musty collage on its surface. Irving had said there might be some information in the library. That was where she should start.

“I need access to the Tower’s collections of records and writings,” she said, placing her hand on the First Enchanter’s sleeve and pressing lightly. “To all the collections, Irving. Even your private volumes.”

Nodding slowly, he replied, “I understand. And when you have explored all that our libraries have to offer you, what then, my child?”

Her hand closed, vise-like, on her former teacher’s arm. “I need you to send me into the Fade.”


	7. Part Two -- Chapter Three

Rhoane shuddered, feeling her body respond to the intense pull of the lyrium gathered around her. Six senior mages — teachers with decades more experience that she had — ringed the Harrowing Chamber, nervously glancing at each other and the collected stones that would provide added fuel for their channeling. No one looked at her. She stood alone in the center of the room, clad in a cast-off apprentice’s robe, and looking less like a Grey Warden than she ever had. Pushing down the impulse to reach over her shoulder for a staff that wasn’t there — because she had left it in her room with Noble and the rest of her gear — she laced her fingers together at her waist and tried to calm the pounding of her heart.

Her research in the Tower libraries had been intriguing, but inconclusive. Even with Finn’s expertise on the Tevinter Imperium, they had found little recorded about the skills of the magisters and their forays through the Veil. The best information she had been able to uncover was a book of Tevinter poetry that talked about the glory of the Golden City and its promise. Irving argued that the writing was only a sad reminder to the people of what they had lost by entering the Fade and tainting that City with their hubris, but the Grey Warden saw it as an opening — a chance that something good could exist in a realm that everyone was told was corrupted and evil.

She had not completely wasted her time, either. Again and again, in even the most obscure writings, she had found a repetitive and forceful emphasis on “focus” when experiencing the Fade. She held the word in her mind like a guidepost and waited.

Irving entered a few moments later, followed closely by the Knight Commander. The Grey Warden frowned. She had known that the First Enchanter wouldn’t return alone, but she hadn’t expected Greagoir himself to come. Well, he’d probably been looking for his chance to kill her for many months now: too bad she didn’t intend to give it to him.

The First Enchanter stepped up to her side and murmured in a voice that was meant only for her ears. “I have told the Knight Commander that we would like to test whether your induction into the Grey Wardens has affected your ability to walk in the Fade as a simple member of the Circle does. Whether you immediately attract demons to you or if you are more resistant to the influences of the realm. You understand the pretext we have devised for him.” Looking directly into her eyes, he emphasized, “And he has come personally to end your life if you are possessed in the Fade and return corrupted. I suppose it is meant as a high honor.”

Rhoane let a smile twist across her lips and nodded to him. Reaching out, Irving patted her shoulder and stepped past her toward the other waiting mages.

Pressing her hands more tightly together, she tried to listen to Irving as he directed the placement of the mages and issued last-minute instructions. But her mind kept racing over the details that she could remember from her dream. That voice. The tower in the mist. The throbbing chant that always surrounded her as she was pulled away to wake in her own bed. Struggling against the fear that threatened to rise up inside her, she reminded herself that she was the Hero of Ferelden.

Three of the senior mages began to cast, their spell work meshing together in a beautiful swirl of power at her feet. As the pattern began to rise from the floor, it crested at the level of her knees. It urged her to move forward, toward a bowl of liquid lyrium that was resting on a pedestal before her. Taking a step, she reminded herself that she was a mage of the Circle Tower and a Grey Warden: she plunged her hands into the opalescent shimmer of the pool.

Instantly, she was transported into the Fade. The misty, dream-like landscape sprang up around her at the same moment that the pedestal and bowl disappeared. She started to sway, disoriented by the rapid shift through the Veil and into the realm of dreams, but she would not allow herself to lose balance. Instead, she focused on the memory of that strange voice, recalling every word it had ever spoken and the strange timbre of its inflection. She forced herself to hear the voice in her head again.

“Where are you?” she called out through the vaporous gloom and waited for a response. As the moments passed, she tried to stay focused on her memory of the voice, to repeat the last words it had said to her.

Time moved, but in that strange backward-and-side-way that it felt like in the Fade. She repeated her question, peering out through the mist, searching.

Like the whisper of a summer wind, the response finally came to her. “Who are you?”

“I am a Grey Warden and a mage of the Circle Tower. I have heard you calling to me. Where are you?” She looked quickly to both sides. The sound seemed to have come from the pathway to her left. She started walking in that direction.

“Can you not see me?”

“No,” she answered, “I have never seen you. I have only heard your voice. Can I be permitted to see you?”

“Could there be a more pleasant way to spend your time in the Fade?” the voice questioned.

Rhoane smiled gently. “Perhaps, but not one that is more important to me. How can I find you?”

“How do you find anything within your dreams?”

“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “I start looking for what I want and just keep going until I find it.”

Rhoane thought that the voice chuckled when it replied, “Is there any other way?”

“It doesn’t seem so for me,” she responded. “Have you spoken to many people when they were visiting the Fade?”

“Who would take the time to listen to old, lonely me?” the voice asked in turn. “Who would bother to search?”

Rhoane followed the soft echo of the disembodied voice, turning when it seemed to come at her from another direction, keeping her mind completely on the reverberation and inflection of the words. The pathway was rough, covered in many places by rattling slides of loose, sharp rock that forced her to set each foot with great care. She rounded a turn and found herself at a dead end: a solid, black wall of rock rose up in front of her to at least three times her own height. It was straight and dark and offered no hand or foot holds that she could see. Andraste’s flaming knickers, she cursed, what would she do now?

“Have you seen the way?” the voice called to her. She heard it coming toward her as if the being that spoke was standing only a few paces in front of her. Struggling with her rising frustration, she walked closer to the stone and reached out to touch it. It felt hard and unyielding.

“You will have to forgive me,” she called out, “but I seem to have mistaken the direction. I’ll need to retrace my steps a bit …”

A chuckle floated through the mist. “Does an obstacle look the same from every angle?”

The question made her stop. Maker’s breath, it was true: she had only examined the face of stone immediately in front of her. The voice implied that the stone might be something else, that it could hide a pathway that was not obvious to someone who wasn’t interested in more than the surfaces in front of them.

Someone who didn’t have a focus.

Looking back at the stone in front of her, she reached out and placed both of her palms on the dark rock. The edge that led off to the right cut sharply a few steps from her and fell away into the abyss of the dream world. She chose to walk in that direction first, trailing her hands across the ebony face of the wall as she went and stepping back with each pace to adjust her angle of sight and re-examine the stone. As her fingers curled around the sheared off edge of rock, she sighed and glanced down into the mists swirling beyond the end of the pathway. The vapors seemed to beckon to her, inviting her to trust them and step into their embrace. Rhoane turned away.

Retracing her steps, she again placed her hands against the wall of rock before her. Slipping to the left this time, she followed the same process, stepping away from the stone to change her angle of looking at it, then moving on. She had taken a few steps when her left hand wobbled, turning onto its side. Rhoane looked at her hand: the stone still appeared to be completely solid, but she could not see most of her fingers. Tucking her left hand up against the edge she had discovered, she slid her right over to meet it and took another stride to the left. Keeping her right hand against the first edge, she reached out with her left — at first only finding mist-filled air until her fingers brushed against another piece of stone. Turning herself so that her arms were wedged between the two walls of rock, she discovered a small, lighter sliver. The rock wall was not one solid slab: it was two pieces that were leaning against each other, giving her just enough room to shimmy between them.

She emerged on the other side of the gap between the rocks into a clearing unlike any other she had ever found in the realm of dreams. Every direction she looked, including up at the mist-veiled sky, was covered with shelves for books, and every shelf was filled to overflowing with what appeared to be leather-bound tomes in the most magnificent array of Fade-muted colors. Even the shelves of the cases that angled above her, forming a kind of dome, were stuffed with reading materials which never shifted or threatened to fall from their places above her.

“Does it frighten you?” the voice from her dreams asked.

She looked in the direction that the words had come from, but all she could see was a pinkish colored boulder, perhaps twice the size of the largest ogre she had ever faced, sitting in the middle of the room on a raised platform. Taking a step toward it, she replied, “Oh, no. I actually have always loved libraries. I swear that every time I researched a subject in the Tower’s collections, I started thinking of even more questions that I wanted to ask and have answered.”

The voice actually did laugh then, a clear melody of sound that echoed back from the shelves around her. Carefully tracking the source, she stepped closer to some of the bookcases on her right and started following them around the circle of the walls. When she had reached the wall opposite where she had entered the room, the Grey Warden looked over at the boulder in the center of the room and stopped.

Because it wasn’t a boulder at all: it looked like a humanoid skull, covered with pinkish flesh and an enormously oversized brain — as large as two or three ogres —bursting from the back. She couldn’t see any arms or legs, but an assortment of tentacles of different lengths and widths spread around the creature. It reminded her almost of a bumblebee sitting in the middle of a many-petaled flower. Smiling at the image, she stepped closer to inspect the creatures face.

“Why do you smile?” the creature asked. “Do I not fill you with dread, as I have with many others?”

She shook her head and said, “Not yet. I was just thinking that you looked like a bee on a flower, which made me think of tea with honey.”

“Perhaps as in this poem?” the creature asked, extending one of its many arms to retrieve a volume from a shelf to her right. It dropped the book in her hands and flipped it open to a particular page. With a gentle flick of the end of its tentacle, it invited her to read.

“And so the sweetness, drink it down,” the passage went, “With joy to overflowing. For soon the sweetness passeth on, without our even knowing, And cools like tea, undrunk and stale, a flavor most unpleasant. Take up the day! Your cares, away! And drink thee up the present!”

She smiled and pressed the pages of the book together between her hands. “That was beautiful,” she said. “I have a friend who would love to sing those words.”

“Do you think she has not?” the creature inquired. “Could she not have spent her time, there in the darkness of your campsites, composing those lines?”

Rhoane quickly opened the volume in her hands to the cover page, but the imprint of the title and the other information wavered in front of her eyes. Was the creature correct? Had Leliana written that verse during their struggle against the darkspawn? “Is this work my friend’s?” she asked.

“Do you really need to ask that question?” the voice replied.

Stepping forward, Rhoane moved closer to the brain creature and sat down before it so that their eyes were on the same level. She smiled at it and said, “No, you are correct. Whether this is my friend’s writing or not is unimportant. What I need to understand is why I have been hearing your voice in my dreams?”

“Who are you?” the creature asked her, its eyes gently questioning.

“My name is …” she started and then quickly stopped when the creature frowned. Dropping her eyes to the book in front of her, she inhaled deeply. It was puzzling, trying to learn from this creature. It was obvious that it could not move about the Fade like other entities could, that in some way it was trapped here among the tomes and scrolls that seemed to contain the writings of probably thousands of artisans and scholars. She looked back up into its eyes and tried again.

“I am a mage of the Circle Tower.”

The creature snarled derisively. “Have I not met mages before? What are they to me?”

She nodded. “I am the Hero of Ferelden.”

Perhaps a dozen of the tentacles leaped away from the creature, snatching volume after volume from the shelves around them and placing them on the floor around her. “Have I not thousands of stories of heroes? Can you compare to them? Do you dare call yourself as great as the Beast of the Pit or the great Ogre-smash?”

“No, of course not,” she replied, trying not to let her temper get the better of her. “But you asked me who I am, and there are so many things that are a part of me. And I am not at all sure what you want to hear.”

The creature smiled gently at her, its golden eyes gleaming gently in the shifting light of the Fade. “When did you begin to hear my voice?” it asked.

“When I went to Vigil’s Keep,” she responded. “When I was ordered away from Denerim by the queen …”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, I …” she started and then stopped herself. Had she really begun hearing the voice in the mist only after she had traveled to help re-establish the Grey Warden’s in Ferelden? Or had the dreams started in the twilight of many days before that? She was certain that they had started after she had slain the Archdemon, because before that, its voice was the only one that she could hear in her dreams. So if they had started after the retreat of the darkspawn, they had also started after Anora and Alistair had been crowned and wed. After Leliana and Wynne had come to her with that ridiculous idea about searching for a cure in the Deep Roads and …

In the Fade.

“I am a mage who is also a Grey Warden, able to travel the Deep Roads and the Fade with equal ease,” she stated flatly.

“And what is your focus?” the creature asked her.

She pressed her fingers against the cover of the book in her lap. After these weeks of wondering about the possibilities of some kind of normalcy for Alistair — and for all the Grey Wardens she now knew — she felt as though she were balancing on the edge of knife blade. Looking up again, she studied the face of the amazing creature in front of her. Its flesh seemed to have been worn away, leaving only the barest covering stretched taut over the bony skull beneath it. It was an unnerving sight, made even more unusual by the gentle emanation of patience, wonder, and — could that be hope? or was she just reading a reflection of her own emotion from the creature? Its very mobile mouth lifted in a tiny smile, and she could not stop herself from smiling back.

“Who are you?” she asked suddenly. “What name can I use for you when I tell this story to my colleagues back in the Tower?”

“What,” the brain-being asked, “would you call me?”

She considered the question carefully, suddenly understanding that her comprehension of the most basic nature of the being across from her was equally as important to the steps she took in the future as was the information she would glean during these moments in the Fade. Once again, she replayed the memory of her dreams and reviewed the moments of her current interaction with the brain-being. Somewhere in the mosaic of interaction, she began to see a pattern.

“Have you ever answered one of my questions with a simple declaration of fact?” she asked, leaning slightly forward and gazing steadily into the glowing eyes.

The creature of the Fade uttered a choking sound and started to cough spasmodically. Rhoane smiled to herself and waited until the creature had regained control of itself.

“You exclusively ask questions,” she stated simply, “and from my interactions with Justice, I would say that you are a more positive spirit than a demonic one. You seem willing to share information with me, but you are even more interested in what I can give to you. If I had to relate you to one trait that I have seen in the people around me, I would call you …”

She paused and tipped her head to one side. The creature’s eyes seemed eager, almost like Noble when he was waiting to leap into the fray with a pack of darkspawn. She needed to decide whether or not her sense of this being was true: was it really a spirit of good intentions or was she about to be possessed by one of the most clever demons she had ever encountered in the Fade. Sighing to herself, she accepted the fact that there would be no going forward until she had made the decision of this moment. For good or ill, she would name this creature and accept her fate.

“I would call you ‘Curiosity’.”

A beaming smile spread across the skull’s face. “Do you know how many have answered my question and failed?” the spirit asked. “Do you know how few truly understand what I am and what I do?”

She shook her head, smiling back at the skull, quietly celebrating this small victory. She let the tension slip out of her body and sighed.

The face in front of her stilled again. “What is your focus?” Curiosity asked.

“I wish to discover a cure for the side affects of the Joining Ceremony,” she answered honestly.

The skull lifted one eyebrow. “Is this truly what you yearn to find?” the spirit asked. When she nodded, it continued, “Can you then answer this question: ‘Is it possible to truly kill a god?’?”


	8. Part Two -- Chapter Four

The Grey Warden stumbled, the step through the Veil and into her reality draining her deeply. She fell to her hands and knees and watched the magic of the elder mages whuff out around her. Some small part of her — the little girl who had stared in fascination at the energy patterns of the first spells she had ever seen — cried out at the erasure of such beauty. Closing her eyes, she fought against a strong urge to vomit.

And felt the metallic press of the sharpened blade of a sword dig into the side of her neck. “Rise, mage,” she heard the Knight Commander of the Tower’s templars command her, “or be returned to the depths that spawned you.”

Rhoane inhaled deeply and toyed with the idea of freezing Greagoir in place: that would teach him to threaten her, surely. But she was too tired. She opened her eyes and watched a single droplet of blood — her blood — slip from the point of the sword that was threatening her existence. It splashed between the fingers of her right hand, the color creating a brilliant contrast with the stony regularity of the Harrowing Chamber’s floor. Pulling one of her feet under her, she started to rise, her legs wobbling like a newborn calf’s.

“Can you not see that she is exhausted?” she heard one of the female mages saying. “We must help her.”

The sword swung out of Rhoane’s field of vision. Knowing Greagoir, he had just executed a sweeping arc with the blade, threatening every mage in the room with that single action. “Hold your ground,” the Knight Commander barked out to those gathered in the room. “One step, and I will take her head on general principle.”

“But we don’t know at this point whether she is possessed or not,” Irving argued, his sensible and even-tempered voice echoing directly in front of her. She desperately tried to lift her head, but the exhaustion rose again, threatening to break the fragile hold she had on her muscles at that moment.

The sword came to rest against her throat again. “On general principle,” Greagoir reiterated.

Well, as usual, it was all up to her: she must face this challenge or every hope that existed for the people she loved would be snuffed from the world. She leaned forward, putting more of her weight on her hands, and fought against the whirlpool drag of vertigo in her head. Maker’s breath, she had never suffered these sensations after journeying in the Fade before. How long had she been gone?

Pushing against the uncertain wobble of her knees, she rose to her full height in the center of the room, the Knight Commander’s sword following the curve of her throat every inch of the way. She dragged her head up and met Irving’s eyes.

“First Enchanter Irving,” she said in a clear voice, “I have return unharmed from the Fade.”

She felt the sword withdrawn and watched Irving step toward her. As his hand closed around one of her shoulders, she collapsed, slipping into the soothing dark of unconsciousness.

She awoke later, blanketed in the comfort of her bed in a guest chamber, Noble snoring gently at her feet. She shifted, trying to sit up, but someone had tucked the coverlet so tightly around her that she was unable to move. Growling in frustration, she tried to drag one of her hands from under the bedding.

Unfortunately, her expression of frustration woke Noble, who suddenly lifted his head, looked straight at her, and started barking. Before she could say a word, he rose and bounced up the bed toward her, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, his ears perked eagerly forward. He began creating even more of a ruckus by adding a long, bright howl to the noises he was making. Butting his head against hers, he let droplets of saliva fall from his tongue across her face. She started to laugh, but the sound came out like the scratch of a chair across a stone floor.

At least he’s loosened the Maker-cursed covers, she thought, pulling both of her hands from under the blankets and wrapping them around her Mabari’s neck. She hugged him tightly against her, not even protesting when he stepped his forelegs across her chest and plopped his upper body down on top of hers. The breath puffed out of her lungs, but she didn’t care enough to push him away. Trailing her fingers through his fur, she let him use her as a cushion and listened to him bark.

Because he was real. Since her return from the Fade, she had been unable to regain consciousness long enough to orient herself again to her surroundings. In those moments when she was awake, her mind seemed wrapped within mists— like the mists of the dream realm — and she was never entirely certain that she had escaped. Noble’s crushing weight across her upper body let her know that she was back safely — and not in the possession of a demon of the Fade.

The door to her room opened, and she heard a woman’s voice say, “You may stop that caterwauling immediately, sir. The entire Tower knows that she is awake now.”

The Mabari hound yipped one last time at the nurse and stopped making any noise, dropping his head down onto the paws that were resting on Rhoane’s chest. The Grey Warden moaned gently, which caused the woman to cross rapidly to her side.

“Get off, you great pillock,” the healing mage said, “you useless beast. You’re crushing the very life out of her.”

Rhoane had to laugh. “He is,” she croaked, her voice harsh, “but assume … he knows exactly … what he’s doing.”

As the nurse reached the side of the bed, Noble rose to his feet and jumped onto the floor. As the Grey Warden watched, he paced over to the chamber’s only door and sat down beside it in the position that Rhoane liked to refer to as “alert for any opportunity to spring on a rabbit.” She smiled.

“And so he was preventing you from taking any deep breaths?” the woman asked, reaching out to press the back of hand against the Grey Warden’s brow.

Shaking her head, Rhoane dragged in great lungs full of air. Her voice rasped out of her when she replied, “Keeping me … from getting up … until someone … got here. Did you tell him … not to let me … out of bed?”

The healing mage looked over her shoulder at the Mabari guarding the door. “Maker’s breath!” she exclaimed, a look of wondering surprise crossing her face.

The Grey Warden laughed again. She croaked, “Unwise to be … too literal … with Mabari. End up … with left boot chewed … just because you told him … not to chew on … the right one.”

The woman smiled. “Let me help you sit up, and we’ll see about getting some food into you. In a bit, I’ll send the First Enchanter in to visit.”

She tried to struggle upright, but her nurse was obviously very skilled in dealing with patients with a great variety of injuries and illnesses. Rhoane was quickly propped up against the woman’s shoulder while she plumped the pillow that had been under head and added more to the pile. Eventually, the Grey Warden was eased back into place, and she settled gratefully against the support of the cushions. She still felt as weak as a newborn kitten and equally unable to keep her eyes open. Sighing, she let her lids slide closed again, struggling against the entropy that crested upward inside of her. It was good to just lie here. It was good to rest. It was good to forget every concern that had been weighing so heavily upon her.

Until she remembered them. Groaning softly, she opened her eyes, struggling to lever herself upright in the bed. “I need to speak … with the First Enchanter,” she croaked, her voice sounding papery-thin and scratchy even to her own ears.

Pressing her back into the pillows, the healing mage nodded at her and looked over her shoulder. The door to the guest chamber had been opened by a young apprentice — Rhoane wouldn’t have thought he was more than nine or ten — and he crossed toward her bed carrying a tray. 

The nurse rose and crossed to the elf boy, taking the tray from him and thanking him in a soft voice. He smiled back at her and walked quickly from the room. Placing the tray across the Rhoane’s lap, the healing mage asked, “Do you believe you have enough strength to feed yourself, my dear?”

The Grey Warden nodded and — simply to prove the point — grasped the spoon in her hand, filling it quickly and bringing it up to her lips. A few gentle puffs of breath and the warm soothing liquid slipped gently down her throat. Rhoane sighed and smiled, especially when her stomach began to gurgle in hungry anticipation of more.

With one final pat to the pillows, the healing mage crossed toward the door, saying, “I will inform First Enchanter Irving that you are awake and might be able to receive a visitor.”

Rhoane would admit later that she had barely heard what the nurse said: after that first sip of broth, it was all she could do not to pour the entire bowl immediately down her gullet. But she stopped herself, spooning each sip carefully from the container and allowing it to slide into her stomach. She was trying to gather the last droplets from the bottom — disappointed that her meal had not included a slice of crusty bread with which to mop up the remnants of the liquid — when Irving entered her room.

He crossed to her bed and sat down on the edge, reaching out to clasp one of her hands within his own. “There you are at last,” he said to her, but she wasn’t certain whether he was comforting her or himself. “We had feared that your excursion into the Fade would end up being pointless after all.” Sighing deeply, he looked over at the door.

“What has … happened?” she rasped. “What troubles …”

Irving squeezed her hand, saying, “Greagoir could not be convinced that your statement truly demonstrated that you had passed back through the Veil unpossessed. I have been arguing with him for the past three days that …”

“Three days!” she barked and started coughing because of the roughened state of her throat. Rising from her side, Irving walked over to the nightstand beside her bed and poured her a glass of water. He held it out to her as the wracking spasms started to recede and placed it back on the table when she had taken a few, small sips. Looking down at her, he continued his story.

“Yes, three days,” he said, frowning at her. “You’ve given all of us quite a bit of time to worry about you and whether we had made the correct decision in granting your request. He demands to be able to see you, to question you at length in some attempt to determine whether you have returned to us … ‘unsullied,’ as he puts it.”

The Grey Warden frowned and looked over at her dog, still sitting upright and attentive at the door. He must have seen the people who had entered her room a number of times to not have growled at them before now. He knew they were all friends, here to help her and not do her any kind of injury. Noble had — from the first moments that he had come to her — been able to detect whether there was danger to her close by.

And whether someone — or something — was possessed by a demon.

He had done it in Honnleath with that stupid cat. He would always know.

“Did anyone think …” she said, her voice like the rattle of reeds in the wind, “to ask my dog?”

Irving looked over at the hound sitting patiently near the opening to the guest chamber while the Grey Warden explained to him about the Mabari’s reaction to the desire demon that had possessed the cat in the village where they had discovered the golem, Shale. The demon had been able to take on the form of the cat but unable to use it to escape the trap in which it had been entangled for years. Noble had known, somehow, that the cat was not the orange tabby it had appeared to be. “He would …” she concluded hoarsely, “have ripped me … to shreds by now … if I wasn’t … the person he knew.”

Reseating himself on the bed, the First Enchanter nodded and said, “I will bring this information to the Knight Commander’s attention after I leave you.”

Rhoane nodded and yawned hugely. Maker’s breath, she had just awoken! What had happened to make her so sleepy?

She heard Irving chuckle and looked over at him when she reopened her eyes. His entire being seemed lighter and less care-worn than when he had entered her room. She smiled in return.

“If that will satisfy our … ‘guardians’ …” the First Enchanter said, “then I have an equal responsibility to satisfy the mages who helped us take you through the Veil. They are all intensely interested to know what you learned during your experience, no matter how brief it was.”

“Brief?” she gasped, her mouth hanging a bit slackly in surprise. “I was certainly gone for hours.”

Shaking his head, the First Enchanter replied, “No, my dear. You stepped through the Veil, disappearing from our sight, and then stepped back into our reality. Like you had passed out into the hallway, closed the door, and then walked directly back in. You were gone for scant moments.”

The Grey Warden shook her head against the pillows. She knew she had spent hours, first searching for the voice that had been calling to her and then learning to communicate with the spirit of the Fade. It had taken her so long, because the spirit could only ask questions; therefore, she had had to adapt her conversation in order to make it possible for Curiosity to communicate information to her. She started to explain this to the First Enchanter, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“I can see that you are still weak and drained from your excursion,” he said to her, patting her hand gently. “I would like you to record what you experienced so that I can share it with any of the mages who are interested. Do you feel able to do that?”

When she nodded, he continued, “I will have materials sent to you. Heal quickly, my dear.” He crossed to the door and paused with his hand on the latch. Smiling back at her, he said, “I can’t wait to tell Greagoir that his ability to detect a mage who has been possessed has been bested by a dog.” He reached out to rub Noble’s ears and left the room.


	9. Part Two -- Chapter Five

Rhoane sat on the end of the dock at the base of the Circle Tower, her feet swinging freely above the murky waters. Mothers told their children tales of the monsters that lurked in its depths: not monstrosities like the darkspawn, but great mythical beasts with gleaming teeth that would swallow you down in one gobble. It was no wonder that she had never heard of a mage successfully escaping from the Tower by swimming across the lake. Superstition held so many more people captive than iron chains ever had.

Not that she was going to try swimming across to the other dock — the one next to the Spoiled Princess tavern where she had learned many of the templars spent their leisure hours. She would let Kester, the ferryman, take her across to the shoreline; and she would probably steer clear the tavern altogether. Avoiding Oghren’s wife, Felsi, was probably the better idea at this point, with the dwarf at Vigil’s Keep, as far as she knew.

The rattle of stone against stone drew her attention, and she noticed for the first time that she was not the only one who had managed to escape from the Tower grounds proper. An elf, dressed in only his linen shirt and breeches and dripping in sweat, was approaching her along the shoreline, executing the strict forms of some swordplay style that she had never seen before. She stared openly at him, admiring the outlines of his chest and back beneath his dampened shirt, appreciating the steady strength of his muscles as he moved from stance to stance, strike to strike. As he stepped through to the completion of another series of lunges and parries, she saw him look up at her, and their eyes met, locking together. She could feel a flush of embarrassment rush into her cheeks. Maker take him, he’d caught her staring at him! He nodded at her, taking this small moment to brush a trailing strand of his red-brown hair away from his eyes, before he resumed his patterns, turning his back to her and working along the shore in the other direction.

She glanced away and closed her eyes, waiting for the heat to ease itself out of her cheeks. Maker’s breath, if she was going to be embarrassing herself like that during the rest of her stay at the Tower, it was time for her to leave.

A scritch of claws on the wood of the dock drew her attention, and she looked over her shoulder as Noble trotted up to her to deposit an empty crab carapace in her lap. Thanking the hound, she sent him off to search for anything else that might be interesting and let the shell slide from her lap back into the waters of Lake Calenhad.

It was time for her to slip away as well, back into the shadows and uncertainty that she had grown so used to since she had become a Grey Warden. She just had to wonder why she was so reluctant to go. She had as much information as she could find — from the libraries, from Finn, and from Curiosity in the Fade — all she needed to do now was journey forth and find what she was looking for — for herself, for the Grey Wardens, and for Alistair.

She sighed and looked down at the image that was reflected back toward her from the eerie waters of the lake. Her trip into the Fade had left her with more than another bone-deep ache of weariness and a reluctance to travel again: her eye-sockets were ringed by dark, blue-black circles that made the whites almost glow, because they were so bright in contrast with the skin around them and the dark brown of her irises. Her black hair hung loosely around her shoulders, because she couldn’t bring herself to spend time braiding and confining it. And her lips — which had once seemed so full and moist, especially when answering Alistair’s kisses — felt drained to the muscles of their wetness. Shaking her head, she reached up and began to section her hair, determined to rein it into the braids she usually wore.

The sound of a step on the wooden planks of the dock made her stop. Looking over her shoulder, she watched First Enchanter Irving cross to her and take a seat on a crate of goods that were being shipped to Denerim. She smiled at him and then gazed back across the water toward the shore, her fingers slowly weaving the strands of her hair together.

“I would offer to do that for you,” Irving said with a chuckle in his voice, “but it’s been years since I played with a maiden’s hair.”

Silence settled around them, wistful and dreamy, a time for individual memories and secrets that could never be shared.

“But I suppose this is not the time for either of us to be indulging in nostalgia,” he said, looking back up at the massive structure of the Circle Tower as it rose above the waters of the lake. “We have lost so much to the passage of time, you and I. Sometimes, I wonder that neither of us has gone mad.”

Rhoane let her fingers slip from her hair, the tresses billowing back down out of the braid that she had started. Reaching out, she clasped one of the First Enchanter’s hands in her own and squeezed it tightly. “We will find more,” she encouraged him. “We will find the ways to fill the holes that have been left by everything that we have lost.”

Irving looked deeply into her eyes. “Do you truly believe that, my dear?” he asked.

She was the first to look away, her eyes traveling back to the shadow of the Spoiled Princess across the waters. “I have to believe it, First Enchanter,” she murmured. “Or learn to live in spite of all that is missing.”

She heard him sigh. They sat together in silence for a few minutes longer, just the gentle slosh of the water against the pilings of the dock to keep them company. Noble’s claws clicked across the wooden planks again, and when Rhoane looked over her shoulder, he was sitting with his head in the First Enchanter’s lap having his ears rubbed. Smiling, she turned to face Irving, tucking her feet crosswise under her.

“The senior mages who helped you into the Fade are beginning to debate some of the information that you brought back with you,” the elder mage said, his hands continuing their rhythmic stroking of the Mabari’s head. “What you have proposed with much of your … research … lies in direct conflict with long-held teaching of both the Circle and the Chantry.” He looked back up at the great Tower looming behind them. “It may take younger minds with fewer preconceptions to actually understand everything that you have told us.”

“But you don’t doubt my information, do you?” she asked. It was important that she know whether the mages had immediately dismissed what she had found, because it meant that her memory of her time in the Fade and what she had learned was distorted somehow.

“No,” the First Enchanter said slowly, “it’s not that we disbelieve you. It’s just that, if we are to move forward with the information you have brought to us, every mage must be willing to accept an alteration in the nature of the Fade: that it is merely the realm of dream — good or ill — and that it is not the realm of demons.”

Rhoane agreed, “Yes, it will be difficult. But Curiosity told me that the Fade is simply the repository of all of humankind’s achievements, ambition, and inspiration — some of which can be ugly and twisted. The spirit, Curiosity, works as a kind of curator, collecting and cataloging these moments so that they can be accessed through dreams as sources for inspiration for creativity and artistry. The Fade was corrupted — made accessible to demonkind — because of the actions of the Tevinter magisters when they discovered the Golden City.” She paused and looked up at Irving, trying to read the reaction in his eyes when she said, “It is possible, if we were to able to return the Golden City to its original splendor, that all mages could be free from the suspicions of the Chantry and the Templars.”

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, my dear,” the First Enchanter replied, “although the same thought had occurred to me when I first read your report.” He sighed, continuing, “And that will be an interpretation of your information that will also be difficult for many of our older apprentices and mage instructors to accept. Chantry teaching begins long before any child is presented to us as a potential apprentice; it is, therefore, even more difficult to overcome.”

“I know,” Rhoane answered him. “And about the question that Curiosity asked me after I was able to name it? What is the consensus around that?”

“Well, there,” Irving laughed, “you really have kicked the hornets’ nest, young lady. Fortunately, because the memory of the appearance of the Archdemon is still fresh in so many minds, the mages are willing to accept the idea that an Old God’s spirit can be found by the darkspawn and liberated to wreak havoc on our world. However, the hope of the people rests in the Grey Warden’s belief that they have been able to and will be able to destroy the Archdemon and the Old God consciousness that resides within it. We struggle with the decision to take that hope from the people, because if the Old Gods are not dead, can there ever be an end to the Blight and the incursions of the darkspawn?”

“I can’t answer that, First Enchanter,” the Grey Warden replied. “But I might be able to offer another hope.” Rhoane then explained about Morrigan and Flemeth and their relationships with the Old Gods: Morrigan’s unborn child had — she assumed — absorbed the spirit of the Old God that had been released when the last Archdemon had been destroyed. And it was related by the Chasind in their stories of Flemeth that she had made a pact with a demon, but what if she had actually found a way to absorb and control the consciousness of an Old God? Of the seven Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium, that eliminated two from the seeking of the darkspawn. Could there be ways to absorb, control, or eliminate the other five as well?

Irving followed her reasoning, asking questions only when her arguments seemed based on the flimsiest of evidence. When she had finished, he patted Noble one last time and rose to his feet. “It seems to me, my dear,” the First Enchanter said, smiling down at her, “that the only place you will find answers to these questions of yours is somewhere in the Tevinter Imperium.”


	10. Part Three -- Chapter One

Rhoane pressed the wood of the board in front of her between both of her hands and struggled against the bucking of the wagon in the deeply rutted road. For at least the tenth time that morning, she wished that she had chosen to walk beside the wagon, instead of riding on the seat beside one of the most boring men she had ever met. Maker take him, he tried her patience! But he was her passport into the Tevinter Imperium. Pressing her lips together, she made a sound that she hoped he found appropriate and tried not to let her body press up against his in too suggestive a fashion. Although Maker knew what he thought of as suggestive! And she was certainly getting an earful of what he thought of as interesting. She gritted her teeth together and held on.

When they had started out together, she had been grateful for his presence: he knew the Imperium and the Tevinter magistry like any good scholar from that kingdom should, and she had tried to learn what she could about the Imperium from him. Templars had captured him just north of Lake Calenhad and brought him to the Circle Tower for fear that he was hiding his abilities as a mage. After the Circle had determined that he had no magical ability whatsoever, he had been allowed to explore the more public portions of the Tower’s libraries. Eventually, he had been found arguing with Senior Enchanter Sweeney about the quality of the books that the mage brought the scholar in answer to his many requests for more information. His insistence that he should be allowed access to all of the Tower’s collections had been enough for First Enchanter Irving to insist that Knight Commander Greagoir release the man and allow him to travel back to Tevinter. Irving had also suggested that Rhoane and her Mabari travel with him.

Unfortunately, the addition of a skilled mage to his entourage seemed to have swelled his head. He already traveled with a bodyguard: the elf that Rhoane had seen practicing forms on the shoreline of the Tower. He was taller than most of the other elves that she had met — she actually had to look up slightly in order to meet his grass-green eyes when she stood before him — and he was lithely muscled, with a deadly combination of speed and strength in his every sword stroke. He was the scholar’s slave, brought with him from Tevinter as protection against the uncertainties of the road. Rhoane cringed every time the scholar ordered the elf into action, addressing him exclusively as “slave” and kicking or striking the elf when the results of his toil were not to the scholar’s liking.

Now, the scholar traveled with not only his personal slave, but also with a mage of the Circle Tower and a Mabari who was masquerading as the scholar’s personal pet. His opinion of himself had risen considerably.

Luckily, both she and Irving had felt that revealing to the scholar that she was also a Grey Warden — let alone the Hero of Ferelden — was inviting disaster to trail along after them. They had asked the scholar to allow her to travel with him as far as Tevinter, implying that she would conduct some business there and then travel on to Antiva. At this moment, she could not wait to leave him behind.

“I was able to add the volume to my very exclusive collection of literary and artistic artifacts. I transcribed the book immediately and submitted a copy for evaluation, earning my first commendation of achievement from the Magisterium,” the scholar was saying, his self-absorbed pride evident in every syllable. Rhoane congratulated him, allowing a tinge of false admiration and envy to creep into her voice, and immediately regretted it when he shifted both sets of reins — which were only for show, the elf was leading the oxen! — into one hand and reached out to pat the knee that was closest to him. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m certain that you will be able to achieve something of some level of import in your future.”

His hand closed around the flesh of her thigh, but before she could move, a deer burst from the woodlands along the side of the road, quickly pursued by Noble. Again, before she could take any other action, the elf dropped the lead rein, knocked his bow, and staggered the deer with a single shot through the breast. The Mabari leaped a moment later, his teeth pressing into the animal’s throat, crushing its windpipe and preventing it from escaping.

“Venison for dinner!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet and leaping to the ground as quickly as she could. As she raced toward the deer, she pulled the small knife she kept at her waistband out, intent on ending the animal’s life if it was needed.

Thank the Maker she was away from that self-important, self-absorbed, self-deluded, boring …

“If you will allow me, my lady,” the elf spoke, coming up to her side as she stood near the dead deer. Noble was looking up at her expectantly, and she reached out to pet him, congratulating him on his excellent tracking and hunting skills, while she sheathed her knife. The Mabari danced in little circles around her while they both watched the elf quickly gut and skin the creature, making short work of something that — she had to admit — she would have struggled with — if only a little. The elf, after removing the innards of the animal, tossed the heart to the Mabari and watched as he wolfed it down.

“The fresh meat makes them stronger,” the elf whispered, speaking to Rhoane voluntarily for the first time since they had met. He looked over at her and began to apologize, “Unless you did not wish … I did not mean to overstep, my lady. It is just that I …”

“No, please,” she said firmly, but in a voice that would not drift back to the scholar, still sitting on his perch in the ox cart. “It is nice to meet someone who actually knows how to take care of him as he truly deserves. How did you learn so much about the Mabari?”

But the elf seemed to ignore her and stepped off into the woods. He returned quickly with about a half dozen large, damp leaves, portioned part of the fresh venison, and wrapped it for safekeeping. One large leaf, filled with other organ meat, he pressed into Rhoane’s hands. “For the hound,” he said, turning on his heel and walking back to the wagon.

She looked down at Noble, who was still working at chewing some of the tougher meat from the deer’s heart, his massive jaws grinding the flesh together. “Well, that’s put me in my place, hasn’t it, Noble?” she asked the dog rhetorically. Unfortunately, she had spoken to her Mabari, who understood more than anyone ever expected: he let his tongue loll out the side of his mouth and huffed his breath. She would swear that he was laughing. At her.

When they camped that evening, the venison was a welcome change from days of rabbit and traveling rations. Rhoane asked the elf again — she had asked at nearly every campsite — if he would let her help with the preparations for their meal, but he shrugged her off and continued with his work. At least he let her lay out her own bedroll, she thought to herself, smoothing a blanket across the thin pad and tossing herself down on top of it, her hands clasped behind her head.

Noble snuffled up beside her, his nose tracing the tantalizing odor of deer organs. Flopping down at the edge of her bedding, he whined a bit and butted his head against her side. She ignored him until the elf came over to tell her that the meal was ready. Sitting up, she whispered to her hound, “And that’s what you get for laughing at me, you beast.”

It only made things worse. Noble cocked his head to one side and let his tongue drop from between his teeth again. She chucked him on one shoulder and pulled the leaf full of organ meat out of its hiding place among her things. Folding the greenery away, she placed it on the ground and let Noble eat while she joined her fellow travelers for her own meal.

The scholar, as the supposedly highest ranking member of their little party, took the finest seat by the fire, ate the lion’s share of the venison, and ordered his slave to attend to him as he prepared to sleep. The elf rose, leaving his uneaten food by his place, and followed his master to the wagon, the bed of which he was using as his private sleeping chamber. She watched him go with a sense of deep relief: she had had more than enough of him for one day.

She toyed with her food, hoping that the elf would return quickly from assisting his master, but the thinly sliced meat was too tempting to allow her to tarry for long beside the fire. She had risen to walk to her pallet when the elf returned.

“I would stay with you while you eat, if you wish it,” she said to him as he reached down for his food and resumed his place by the fire.

He looked up at her and frowned. “It is not your place, my lady,” he said.

“It’s my place to know the people that I travel with,” she retorted, her temper stirring inside of her. “I have to know whether I can depend on you when the time comes. Whether I am alone here or with a warrior who can attend to his own side of the battle. That is the place I occupy.”

The elf stared at the food in his hands and said, “I will be there.”

Rhoane opened her mouth to ask the elf more, but he rose to his feet and walked into the gloom of the evening, stuffing the last of his venison into his mouth as he went. She stared after him, again feeling the keenness of his rejection of her overtures of friendship. Maker’s breath, he was even worse than Sten! But where speaking with the Qunari warrior had been like talking to a monolith of stone, talking to the scholar’s elven slave was like trying to capture the wind in a bottle: it seemed like a fool’s errand even from its inception. She sighed and walked over to her bedding, squirming down beside Noble’s warm body and under the blanket. Her eyes closed, and she drifted to sleep.


	11. Part Three -- Chapter Two

She was standing in the center of a glowing circle of power, her arms multiplied and stretching beyond what she could see with her own eyes. But she could feel those appendages, sense them wrapped tightly around beings that continually struggled against the restraint and screamed at the violation of their sovereignty. She looked around herself, trying to orient her mind against the drumbeat chant of “Thrall! Thrall!” that echoed all around her. It reverberated as only sound could when surrounded by stone as in the Deep Roads …

Or the streets of a city.

She looked up at the mist-laden sky of the Fade and the towers that rose upward around her. She was in a city … the city … the Black City, the city polluted by the efforts of ordinary humans to tap and control its power. The earth shook beneath her as the chant gained volume, reaching a feverish pitch that drove her to cover her ears with her hands and look desperately around her for some relief.

Nothing helpful came into her line of sight, and an odor rose around her, rank and suffocating, like the stench of a dozen eggs, broken and left to rot on the ground. She looked up again, a dark shadow spreading across the sky above her, its wings opened to smother her in their vast ebon deeps.

She dragged herself awake, out of her dreams — but it was still only a reflection of the Fade. She had not crossed the Veil to walk the dream realm. Again. As in all the other times she had recently had a chance to dream. Puzzled, she turned to her other side and reached out, seeking Noble’s reassuring presence. But he was gone.

And then there was that smell. Like broken eggs left to rot in the sun. Like sulfur and brimstone.

Like demons.

She leaped from her bedding, grabbing her staff as she rose, and rushing toward the light of their campfire. But that was not the only light in the circle of their camp. An unearthly glow, like she had seen too many times before, rose from beside the wagon, where the patterns of summoning had been laid into the dirt and empowered by … what? Maker preserve us, the scholar had brought lyrium with him! And was using it to provide the magical power for a summoning circle here in the wilderness.

She rushed toward him, just beginning to hear the words of the incantation he was reading from a scroll that he was holding in front of his face. She had heard words like these before, too, and knew that the scholar was nearly at the end of the spell. She had to act now.

Drawing her own power, she cast a spell designed to freeze the scholar in place, just as the final syllables of the incantation left his lips. The spell hit him all the same, stilling all movement and sound, but his summoning had been completed. She watched in horror as the fabric between her world and the Fade ripped, and a demon began to step through.

She was tempted to curse aloud when the first spirit of evil tore through the Veil: it was a pride demon, one of the most powerful beings of the corrupted Fade, difficult enough to face alone without the presence of however many more managed to work their way through the opening. But it was focused completely on the man who had provided this opportunity to it. Striding from the tear in the Veil, it crossed to the scholar and took his chin in its taloned hand. It seemed to consider the scholar’s face for a moment, then released the chin and slid its fingers up the sides of the man’s face. It stopped with its thumbs over the scholar’s lids and began pressing, driving its corrupted flesh into the eyes and beyond. Watching from where she had skidded to a halt, she saw the scholar’s skin begin to bubble, seeming to melt from within, reddening and slipping away from the bones beneath them. The demon stared intently at the scholar’s face, pushing its thumbs farther and farther into the skull. Suddenly, her spell broke, and the air was filled with the scholar’s screams.

Noble burst into the clearing at that minute, his jaws latching onto what should have been a leg of the pride demon. But the spirit ignored the Mabari, concentrating instead on its prey —– the human form it could use to walk the earth again. Rhoane could see the demonic form begin to shrink as it was welcomed into the scholar’s failing body. She had to do something. Now.

Stepping forward she activated her protective spells and cast a ray of freezing cold at the demon. It stopped the forward motion of its form, but the spiritual damage was already done: the scholar’s physical being was welcoming the demon, absorbing its energy to replace the life force that it felt draining swiftly away. The Grey Warden blasted the demon with another icy spell and watched it land at the same moment an arrow sank into the back of its skull.

Looking toward the edge of the clearing, she saw the scholar’s slave with his bow drawn ready to fire another arrow. The Veil tore again: a beast of molten fire stepped into their camp, searching for its prey. There was only one choice open to her; she would have to take on the rage demon and hope that the elf could deal with the other and his master in the meantime.

She screamed at him across the campsite, “For Andraste’s sake, take his head!”

Thank the Maker the elf seemed to have understood her call. She watched as he dropped his bow where he stood and drew his sword, swinging it in an even arc from its place between his shoulder blades. She tried not to follow him with her eyes as he raced toward the wagon and used the small gate at the back to leap over the side and land beside his master and the demon. At that moment, Rhoane had to look away: the rage demon had found her and was energizing its own spell in order to bathe her in a fountain of fire.

Noble broke its concentration, throwing his bulk against the demon’s side and causing it to stagger to the right. One spell of frost froze the being in place; the next one crushed it into dust. She turned back toward the scholar.

The elf was reaching out to take his master into his arms when she saw him. She rushed forward, screaming “No!” at the top of her lungs and once again casting her stilling spell to stop him from moving.

The scholar collapsed at his slave’s feet, the body twitching uncontrollably as the remainder of the man’s consciousness struggled with the overpowering might of the demon invader. Rhoane watched the battle dispassionately: she knew which being was winning — would win — in the next few moments. She stepped in front of the stilled warrior and looked directly into his eyes.

“You have to take your master’s head,” she said to him levelly, seeing fear spring across his face as he finally understood the command that she had given him. “I don’t have an edged weapon. You are the only one who can destroy what your master will become, now that he is accepting the demon into his own body. You must do it, so that we can seal the tear in the Veil and prevent other evils from emerging. Now! Before the demon completely absorbs him.”

She released her spell and looked over at the tear in the Veil. Already, another demon was pressing against the opening, searching for a way to negotiate through the strained layers between the two worlds. Stepping toward the rent, she prepared a spell and called Noble to her side. Her Mabari limped over to her — he had suffered from the impact with the rage demon — and began to growl.

And then the tear in the Veil winked out. She turned around to see the elf standing over his master, his sword dripping red as gouts of blood spread out around his feet. He looked up at her, his face a stony mask.


	12. Part Three -- Chapter Three

The Grey Warden’s nerves rattled along with the clang of the keys that the elf was sifting through, using them for the first time, trying to find the one that would open the slave’s door to his former master’s house in Minrathous. Hovel, Rhoane thought, would be a much better description. If this is what a commendation of achievement from the Magisterium was worth, she would not try earning one. She looked around them at the gloom of the alleyway, trying to see if there were any threats waiting for them here in the city, but she was too tired to focus for more than a moment on any one shadow. And Noble was calm. She held herself still and wished that some of his assurance would seep into her.

It had been a long journey. After the battle with the demons, they had buried the scholar’s body and tended to Noble’s wounds. The Mabari was resilient, but the burns from the rage demon’s touch had seared more than just the fur from his flesh. After moving their camp in the morning, they had waited for a few days while the hound regained his strength. Rhoane had to dissuade the elf from burning the wagon, because it would attract attention to their location, and she discouraged him from searching for the oxen, which had run off when the first demon had crossed through the Veil. They would have to proceed on foot, with only the most basic necessities to support their health and their story.

Rhoane had suggested that they continue on as the servants they were supposed to be, but the elf flatly refused. By her very nature, he insisted, she was identifiable as a mage. He would have to continue as her slave.

“I don’t see why,” she argued with him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Your master is dead, and I do not want you as a slave. You should consider yourself a free man.”

He shook his head in response. “There is no such thing for me in Tevinter,” he replied. “No elf has ever walked the lands of the Imperium as anything other than a slave.”

“Because it has not been before,” she stated, “doesn’t mean that is how it must always be. I will not take you as my slave.”

He stared at her, his eyes seeming to consider the future that she was laying before him and then he looked away. “Even if you will not accept ownership, you must at least pretend to be my master. If only to allow me to continue to protect you.” She frowned at him, and he continued, “If I have no owner, anyone whom we meet on our journey may claim me as his rightful property — simply for the fact that I have entered his establishment or walked across his lands. And …” he held up his hand so that she would not interrupt him, “do not say that we can simply avoid the company of others. It is not possible. Somewhere, somehow, we will encounter other humans.”

He had been right, of course. They had few encounters with people, because they traveled late into the night and avoided the main roads as much as possible. But they were still questioned, rudely and almost ceaselessly, by the individuals that they did meet. More than once, Rhoane had had to cut a conversation short, simply because the person demanded to examine the elf’s features and made outrageous offers to purchase him. She began to understand why he had insisted that she play the part of his master.

They had also had to send Noble off into the wilderness by himself, knowing that he would parallel their path, because a Mabari war hound — an animal seen most commonly in Ferelden — would have raised even more eyebrows in their directions. He returned to them every night, often with a rabbit or other rodent for the spit, racing off with the dawning light to find his own way forward.

Thank the Maker that was over now. They had arrived at the scholar’s home and could shelter there as she searched for information to lead her forward. If only the darkspawn-cursed door would open.

“I’m sorry this has taken me so long,” the elf said, fitting another key into the hole and turning it unsuccessfully. “But it has never been my responsibility to care for the master’s keys. I do not know them.”

She leaned against wall beside him, yawning widely, and letting her eyes slide closed. “It doesn’t matter, Abelas,” she murmured, the lethargy seeping through all her muscles.

That was perhaps the only good thing to come out of their travels together so far, Rhoane reflected: the elf had agreed to let her give him a name. From what he had told her, he had never known his father or mother, spending his entire life in the “stable” of a rich flesh merchant where every elf, human, or Qunari was referred to as “slave.” Therefore, he had never been given a name of his own. At first, he refused to let her call him anything besides “you” — she refused to call him “slave” — and stared at her in stony silence when she brought up the subject. Eventually, he had relented, especially when she made it plain to him how difficult it would be for her to communicate with him in battle or an emergency if he didn’t know he was being addressed.

She had named him “Abelas” — with his permission, of course — a word she had learned from the Dalish that meant “sorrow.” And it fit him, she reflected, sagging against the stone of the scholar’s former home. His every look in her direction was bathed in a kind of regret that she had never seen before. She had worried about it, wondering if she shouldn’t force him to leave her to seek his own future somewhere else, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. As much as she hated to admit it, she was like a fish on the shore here in Tevinter; the elf held her only hope for survival.

The click of the lock releasing reached her ears, and she tried to move toward the sound. Her eyes remained stubbornly, exhaustedly shut, and she stumbled, falling.

Until she was caught in Abelas’s arms. He scooped her against his chest and crossed into the hovel’s kitchen. She felt him kick the door shut, this time managing to open her eyes enough to see Noble amble over to the dark fireplace. She watched him huff down in front of it and tuck his head up against his body. He would be asleep in moments, she thought, and wrapped her hand up around the elf’s neck, letting herself drift in the strength of his arms.

She awoke later, still wrapped in a cloud of exhaustion, but with a stomach that demanded her attention. Slipping from the bed where she assumed that the elf had placed her, she padded barefoot through the house, looking into every room until she found the kitchen.

And Abelas standing in a small tub of water, bathing himself.

His back was turned toward her, and she watched as he straightened, bringing a cloth up to allow the water to trickle over his shoulder. In the light of a candle that he had placed on the kitchen table, she could see the interlacing of many long-healed lash marks across the plains of his torso. They drew her like the patterns of a spell, causing her to tiptoe forward and place a finger upon the battered, raised flesh of one scar. He started and turned toward her, unashamed, probably conditioned never to hide his flesh from anyone who wanted to examine him. Looking over at him, she met his eyes, tears beginning to well in the corners as she thought of the pain he must have suffered. He looked away first and stepped out of the tub.

“I did not think you would mind if I bathed myself,” he said. “The master did not like for us to be dirty or too foul to his sense of smell when we were at home.”

“N-no, no, of course not,” she stammered, looking around the room in order to orient herself again. “I would like a bath very much myself, except for the fact that my stomach is threatening to wake the neighbors with its noise.”

She looked back over at him and watched as he slid his shirt over his head. It slipped down almost to his knees — obviously not a shirt that had been tailored specifically for him — and erased the image of his scars from her vision. Not that she would ever forget the look of them, harsh and ruddy against the golden tan of his skin and the even symmetry of his muscles. Oh, Maker preserve me, she thought, this is no time to be enjoying the sight of a naked man! She was adrift in a strange country with no idea what her next step should be, with no protection other than her wits, her Mabari, and the man she had been shamelessly ogling. It was time to get herself under control.

Except that he stepped closer to her, dressed only in his shirt, and extended his hand. She took it uncertainly — was that a spark that she had felt pass between them when their fingers met, or was she imagining it? — but he only led her to the table where he pulled out a chair for her and waited for her to sit down. She accepted the seat and clasped her hands in her lap.

“There were only a few bottles of wine left in the cellar,” he was saying, as he placed a fork and knife in front of her. “But I managed to barter one of the master’s trinkets with a serving woman whom I know down the alley.” A plate joined the knife as a pang suspiciously like jealousy flashed through her. So he knew a servant down the alley, did he? She pushed the emotion down. Of course he knew others of his own rank in this town. He probably preferred their company to hers, laughed and flirted with them when he had a few moments to himself. The tears that had welled in her eyes as she stared at his scars threatened to overflow, turning the cheese and crusty bread that he had placed in front of her into an image from the Fade — misty, unattainable, and not at all nutritious. One droplet trickled across her cheek.

She rose quickly, excusing herself, and turning blindly in the direction of the door. As she stepped away from the table, she rammed her hip into its corner, upsetting her already unsteady balance and causing her to fall.

To fall once again into Abelas’s arms.

In one long stride, he had crossed to her, catching her against his chest and holding her until she shifted to a more stable stance within the circle of his arms. She could feel his eyes on her face, and when she looked up, he was staring at her in a kind of curious wonder. Lifting one hand, he used the pad of his thumb to trace the trail of her tear down the cheek to the corner of her mouth. He then brushed the same thumb across her lips, and she shivered uncontrollably against his chest.

He stilled, and suddenly she was afraid that he would let go of her, step away, and drop the comforting circle of his arms from around her body. Even the idea of such loss caused a pulse of pain, and another tear escaped the barrier of her eyelashes and spilled down her cheek. He followed its course with his eyes and reached out to touch her damp flesh with his fingertip.

“But why are you crying?” he asked her, his voice husky and deep. It caused her to shiver again and catch her breath on a sob.

She lowered her lids, unable to maintain eye contact as she answered honestly, “I suddenly was very afraid that I would lose you.”

Both of his arms tightened around her, and he brought his face next to hers, allowing her to feel the smooth angles of his cheek against her own. “Would that such a thing were possible now,” he whispered against her hair, “but I fear that I am yours: body, mind, and soul.”

She leaned back within the strength of his arms and met his eyes, the wonder in hers mirrored perfectly back from his own. As she looked at him, he leaned forward and let their lips meet, gently and tenderly. Her eyes slid shut.

She followed his lead as he kissed her, afraid that at any moment he would bolt away from her, begging her forgiveness for what he had perceived as a trespass against her person. Slowly, she brought one hand up to press it against the planes of his face, enjoying the thrill that passed through her as he lifted his mouth from hers to press his lips into the palm, cradling it tightly against his face and beginning to twine his fingers between hers.

She let her head fall against his shoulder, her breasts crushing more tightly against his chest as he pressed kiss after kiss into her palm and started to nibble at her fingertips. She sighed, snaking her other arm up around his neck to hold him more closely against her. Drifting on the flood of sensations, she relaxed into his arms and waited.

It was the grumbling of her stomach that stopped them both. She felt his lips still, resting against her finger, no longer seeking new curves for their exploration. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she said, “I suppose I ought to have just a bite of that bread and cheese.”

Nodding, he stepped away, maintaining his hold on her hand, and led her back to the chair at the table. He helped her take her seat then dropped her hand as if to step away from her. Gripping his fingers more tightly, she looked up at him and said, “I will eat, if you will sit here with me.”

He shook his head. “This is the master’s table,” he replied, “I am not allowed at it for any reason.”

She pulled his hand to draw him closer and smiled up at him. “It is our table now, Abelas. Our table, our chairs, our silver … our bed.” Her smiled deepened. “Come, sit beside me and pour me a glass of wine. That bread looks a tad on the dry side.”

He looked uncertainly around him at the dusty hovel then shrugged and pulled another chair away from the table. She clutched his fingers more tightly in hers and leaned her head back against the top of the chair, allowing her eyes to drift shut again.

“You are too tired,” he muttered next to her. “You do not know what you are doing.”

She laughed aloud at that, opening her eyes and picking up her fork to spear a bite of cheese from her plate. “I have battled darkspawn with less than an hour’s sleep for days on end. At this moment, it is only that I am not in any immediate danger that allows me to be so sleepy.”

His frown deepened. “But there is danger. All around us,” he replied, sloshing some wine into her goblet. “If anyone were to know that you will not treat me as a slave should be …”

“I can’t do that,” she interrupted, releasing his hand to take the bread into her fingers. Tearing it into smaller pieces, she placed bits of cheese on top of them and popped them into her mouth. She had been right: the bread was dry. Reaching for her goblet, she sipped the vinegary liquid and choked it down.

Abelas continued to argue with her. “But I cannot be seen as anything but a slave in Tevinter.”

“I am aware of that,” she answered, abandoning the bread and wine for more of the musty cheese. Somehow, it reminded her of the wet dog smell that foreigners always complained about in Ferelden. She slipped another wedge into her mouth and continued, “But we are not in public at the moment. And I will strictly follow all of your instructions when we are.”

“Swear,” the elf insisted suddenly, his hand closing on her arm that was resting on the table. “Swear that you will obey me in all things having to do with the Imperium and the Tevinter magisters.”

Lifting her head from the chair back, she met his eyes steadily. “I swear it,” she replied.

She heard his breath rush out of him in an explosive sigh, and suddenly he was on his knees beside her, his arms encircling her and her chair, his head bowed low against her body. She let her fingers trail through his red-brown hair, enjoying the silky brush of it against her skin. Maker’s breath, his was a beauty unlike any she had ever experienced before in her lifetime. She sighed against the press of his face on her abdomen and continued to play with his hair.

“I am but a slave,” she heard him mutter. “There is nothing I can ask of you.”

She slipped one hand under his forehead and forced him upward until she could look into his eyes. “Abelas,” she said to him, “you may ask anything of me.”

For the first time in the months that they had traveled together, a smile crossed his face. “Would you like a bath?” he asked.


	13. Part Three -- Chapter Four

Rhoane slipped into the marble basin in the room adjoining the bedchamber where she had awoken earlier and lay back against the stone, allowing the heat of the water to seep through her skin and into her tired muscles. The door opened and Abelas stepped in, still clad in only his shirt, carrying a bar of soap and a rough rag. He looked at her for a moment, then stepped up beside the tub and plunged both the rag and the soap into the warm liquid, working one against the other until the fabric was well lathered. Reaching into the water, he lifted the arm nearest him and began to scrub her flesh.

“I am perfectly capable of washing myself,” she snapped at him, the pleasure of those few moments spent soaking draining away from her in an instant. She held out her hands for bath items, but Abelas kept them stubbornly in his own. Meeting his eyes, she frowned at him, but he smiled gently back.

“If I asked it of you,” he said quietly, “would you allow me to bathe you?”

The way that he asked — the gentle doubt in his voice — made her close her eyes and agree. She leaned back against the marble of the basin and let him begin where he would. He washed her hair first, his hands strong and gentle as he massaged her scalp and rinsed the bubbles from her flowing tresses. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she could let her hair hang loosely about her shoulders for a day or so — freeing her from the braids and bindings that she was used to wearing. If only for a day or so.

The rag was rough against the skin of her arms and legs, scrubbing away the weeks of dirt that had built up on her as they traveled through the wilderness, but Abelas’s touch was like a whisper. His fingers lingered where the cloth did not, working into the tight knots of her muscles and stroking her flesh steadily and evenly. She began to sigh, her breath coming more quickly into the steam-bathed room around her, relaxing into his practiced care. It was only when the rag brushed against the joining of her thighs that she jumped, her lids flying open so that she could look up at the elf, his eyes concerned as they met hers.

“I beg your par-,” he started, turning his head away from her.

Reaching up, she placed one hand on his cheek, turning him so that he was forced to meet her eyes again and smiled. “I was only startled. Please,” she whispered, “touch me again.”

He obliged, but not in the way that she had expected. Instead of returning to the fire that raged in her nether regions, he began to stroke her breasts, his strong fingers tracing the curves of her flesh, gently brushing over the puckered skin of her nipples. She moaned and let her eyes close again, determined that — in whatever time they were to have together — she would enjoy the pleasures they might find in each other. As his hand began to trail across her belly, she felt his lips against her neck, nibbling gently and stoking the fire that was building inside of her. Sighing, she turned her head and let their lips meet, allowing her mouth slide open when his tongue darted out to explore its contours. Turning toward him, she reached out to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him closer, but all she ended up doing was pressing her body more tightly against the unforgiving marble of the bath. She growled in her throat, and for the first time, she heard Abelas chuckle gently. The sound made her smile.

But then she gasped as his fingers traced up the contour of her thigh and to the pulse beat of pleasure that throbbed between her legs. His hands were gentle, undemanding but determined, and he feathered his fingertips across her flesh for long, tingling moments before he began to increase their pressure. She moaned and released her grip on his neck, focused so completely on the sensations building inside of her that she was unable to maintain her hold on him. The bath water sloshed gently as she writhed against the insistent circling of his hands and the press of one finger as it entered into the flaming core of her desire. Crying out, she shuddered her fulfillment under his hands, gasping out his name, and allowing herself to be taken away on wave after wave of pleasure.

She wanted to luxuriate — to stay wrapped in this moment of fulfillment and pleasure — but she felt Abelas gather himself and begin to move away. Her eyes flew open and she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips against his. Her sudden motion caught him off balance, and he had to catch himself with his hands on the bottom of the tub, soaking most of his shirt and splashing water across the bathing room floor.

“Come in with me,” she whispered when she finally released his lips. His shirt was hopelessly soaked now, and the little puddles that had dotted the floor had turned into a small lake of water.

But he shook his head. “I ca-,” he began, but she interrupted him.

“You are the master of this house now,” she purred against his throat. “Come into the bath with your mistress.”

Her words seemed to inflame him for — in moments — he had stripped his sodden shirt over his head and rose beside the tub, his desire for her plain in the straining of his member, his eyes burning into hers. She also rose in the tub, opening her arms to him and inviting him to her with a gentle smile. He stepped into the water, and she pushed him down into the place where she had just been reclining, reaching for the soap and the rag so that she could, in turn, bathe him. She soaped his arms and legs, running her fingers across the rock-hard strength of his muscles and reveling in the rugged contours of his flesh. Pulling him into a seated position, she released his hair from the leather strap that held it in place and scrubbed the sweat from his locks with gentle strokes of her fingers. Her hands played across the web-work of his back, cursing the men — the “spiders” — who had striped him so, leaving her own gentle, fingertip traces in the patterns that marked him. He groaned under her hands, his lips seeking blindly for some trace of her flesh to kiss or suck, his hands rising to intertwine through and through her hair. At last, it seemed that he could take the building pleasure no more, for he fell back against the marble of the tub, pulling her on top of him and impaling her. The water splashed across the floor in a flood of abandon, but neither of them paid it any heed. They writhed together, each finding the other’s pulse, moving in concert until they both crested and plummeted over the heights, each the other’s fulfillment.

Their striving complete, Rhoane collapsed against Abelas’s chest, enjoying the hard clasp of his arms around her body, the silky drift of his hair under her cheek. She settled against him, marveling at how well they fit together with his cheek pressed against the top of her head and her thigh trailing across his legs. Lifting a strand of hair from his chest, she brought it under her nose and breathed in its fragrance, trying to imprint it into her memory.

“Hmmmm,” she sighed. “You smell like deathroot flowers, just before the stalks start to turn.”

“As do you,” he replied. “I believe we have washed with the same soap, after all.”

She chuckled at this completely unromantic comment and then shivered: she had not realized that the temperature of the water had fallen so much. Abelas felt her body’s involuntary movement and rose from her side.

“I will fetch the bathing sheet I have warming for you,” he said and then looked around at the great spill of water across the floor. “And perhaps some others to clean this mess.”

She watched as he left the room, her eyes lingering on the whiplashed perfection of his back and buttocks. There was something unholy about a land that kept other humanoids as slaves, she thought, standing and squeezing as much moisture as she could from her hair and back into the tub. When Abelas returned, she allowed him to wrap the large piece of linen around her torso and tuck it under her arms. And he was off again.

Stepping from the tub, she wandered into the bedchamber — the scholar’s private sleeping room, she assumed — and crossed to the hearth. A bright blaze crackled and spat there, and Noble had stretched out in front of it. As she approached, he twitched and grunted in some dream of pursuit and capture, which made her smile gently and step away, so as not to wake him. She crossed instead to where her pack was leaning against the foot of the bed and searched through her things until she found her comb. Perching on the side of the bed, she began the process of untangling her long, straight hair — a process that she dreaded. Pulling it into smaller sections, she dragged the comb tediously in inching sections from the bottom to the top of the groups of strands, cursing loudly when the narrow teeth of the comb would not pass through a particularly snarled tangle.

The bed sagged behind her, and she felt Abelas’s hand on her own. Crossing the mattress, he had come behind her, and now he took the comb from her and began working it gently through her tresses, more patient with the snarling mess than she ever could have been. She stared over at the fire, watching Noble racing through his dreams, willing herself to just stay still in this moment of quiet and peace.

“We should cut this,” he said behind her.

“No!” she cried, reaching with one hand to sweep the long spill of her tresses over her left shoulder. “It’s my hair!”

She felt his fingers twine through the locks, gathering a new section to comb. “The mages of the Tevinter Imperium,” he lectured, “do not count vanities of the body among their greatest faults. Vanities of the mind are much preferred.”

Biting the tip of one finger, she asked, “How much time to you think I’ll need to spend here?”

“As little as possible,” he replied, allowing a fall of her hair to shimmy down across her right shoulder. “If you will tell me what you seek, I will use my position as the scholar’s slave to acquire everything that is available.”

“Is that safe?” she asked, suddenly fearful for him, unwilling to allow him to assume risks that she should be taking herself. “It is not your responsibility, you know — to find what will lead me forward. It is a burden I placed upon myself, and I cannot let you risk your safety, your person, or your freedom simply because I would stand out in Minrathous.”

His hands stilled, the gentle stroke of the comb stopping against her shoulder blade. “For you,” he whispered behind her, “I would risk everything.”

She rose slowly to her feet and turned to face him. He was still kneeling on the bed, her comb in his hand, a few strands of her long, black hair clinging to his breeches. Their eyes met and clung together, and she moved with infinite care to release the bathing sheet from its tucks around her chest. She slipped up onto the bed beside him and drew him down onto the cushioning comfort of the feather pillows.

Her comb clattered to the floor, unheeded.


	14. Part Three -- Chapter Five

“Slap me.” Abelas’s voice barely reached her ears. “Very hard and very fast. Now!”

Rhoane obeyed: after all, she had sworn that she would do anything that he told her to do when they were outside of the scholar’s home in Minrathous. The thin, silken glove that she was wearing did little to lessen the sting when her flesh met the contours of the elf’s face, and her stomach shifted a bit. If he was telling her to strike him, she had made some type of mistake and had drawn unwanted attention. She felt a blush begin to creep up into her cheeks.

Abelas whispered to her again. “The book. Order me to retrieve it.”

That was what she had done: reached out to pick up a book that she had seen on the shelves of the rare dealer’s shop. “That one there,” she said in a clear voice, hoping that the clerk would notice what she said and not how she had acted moments ago. “Bring it to me over there, if you can manage it. Slave.”

Turning on her heel, she crossed toward a nearby table, pretending to impatiently tug at the fingertips of her right glove so that she could remove it. Abelas approached her and placed the book on the flat surface in front of one of the chairs, then pulled that seat away from the table and waited for her to sit. She did so with a haughty dignity that she could only pretend to feel and commanded him step away.

“Your filthy presence will only despoil this classic tome,” she hissed at him, putting a make-believe venom into her words. She saw him bow his head and step back from the table. She was on her own now.

The clerk looked over at her as she opened the book’s cover and laid it flat on top of the table. Trying to project a calm that she was far from feeling, she riffled through the pages in what she hoped the shop worker would think was a disinterested boredom until she found the illustration she had been looking for. Slipping one finger between those particular pages, she continued to flip the papers backward and forward until she was certain that she had memorized the image. Pushing her chair away from the table, she rose, pulling her glove back on.

“Put it away,” she ordered Abelas. “It is useless to me.”

Abelas bowed his head toward her and moved to obey what the clerk must surely think was an order from a mage to her slave. Fighting an urge to follow after the elf — to stay as closely to him as she could, here in the dangerous streets and businesses of Minrathous — she crossed to the door of the shop and waited there for Abelas to join her.

“Hurry up,” she called, this time allowing her true anxiety to make her voice sound testy. “I have other — more reliable — bookshops to investigate before evening.”

In moments, Abelas was at her side, reaching to open the door for her and holding it open as she passed out into the twilight that was creeping in to blanket the city. She strode forward purposefully, reining in the desire to look over her shoulder to make sure that the elf was there.

“Left here, “ she heard him whisper, and turned when an opening appeared between the buildings. She continued moving forward steadily, changing directions only when he told her to adjust their course. The people out on the streets so close to dark — the slaves hurrying to fulfill the orders of their masters, the common, working folk escaping the city proper to find their tables and beds — moved out of their way. She was a Mage of the Tevinter Imperium, after all; or at least, that was what she appeared to be.

Eventually, she began to recognize the buildings that surrounded them, and her pace quickened. She wanted nothing more than to cross the threshold of that dilapidated hovel they had been occupying for the last two weeks and let herself breathe again. Noble emerged from a shadowy alleyway shortly before they arrived at the house, and she reached out gratefully to wrap her fingers around his collar.

She stepped into the gloom of the passage beside the scholar’s hovel and squatted down to wrap her arms around Noble’s neck. Burying her face in his fur, she forced herself to inhale and exhale deeply, even if the air did smell of war hound and whatever he had gotten into while they were out. Abelas passed them, quickly unlocking the slave’s door and holding it open for her and the Mabari to enter. She crossed to the table, stripping off her gloves and the ridiculous headdress that she had been forced to wear and tossing them away carelessly, so that they all slid to the floor. She didn’t care. She turned to face the elf when the door lock clicked behind him.

“Maker’s breath, Abelas,” she whispered quickly into the silence. “I am so sorry that I made such a simple mistake. Can you ever …”

She couldn’t finish her apology, because he crossed to her and crushed her against his chest, his arms desperately tight. “We must leave this place,” he murmured. “There is too much danger.”

Rhoane could not disagree with his assessment of their situation. They had been living in the scholar’s hovel for two weeks now: two long, trying weeks. The first ten days or so, Abelas had been able to retrieve books and scrolls from certain shops and libraries, simply by saying that his master would like to borrow them. Some of the information had helped and had led them to resources where it became impossible to borrow anything on his word alone. For the last three days, they had walked the streets of Minrathous together, posing as a Tevinter mage and her slave, leaving the hovel in the late afternoon when the shopkeepers were thinking of dinner and bed, and returning under the cover of the gathering twilight. Each moment away from the house had pulsed with an uncertain dread — that she would make a mistake, that they would become separated, that they would be found out and captured — which had made them both edgy and snappish when they returned to the scholar’s hovel. And although she had convinced him to share her bed, they had not made love to each other for at least a week.

That was why, she assured herself, the press of his body against hers had ignited such a burning flame within her. She sighed and let him crush her to him, her arms trapped against his chest, her head falling to rest against his shoulder. His fingertips dug painfully into the spare flesh of her back, imprinting her with his fear and longing for their safety. She rested within the taunt circle of his arms and waited.

He was forced to release her when someone rapped on the slave’s door. Springing away from her, he motioned for her to leave the kitchen, taking her Mabari with her. Rhoane raced for the door, reaching to scoop up her clothing items from the floor, Noble at her heels. She slipped down the hallway and into the scholar’s bedchamber, dropping the headdress and gloves onto the bed.

Gloves? Her heart stilled within her. She had had two gloves when they entered the kitchen. Quickly, she lifted the headdress from the coverlet, shaking it vigorously. Nothing. Lifting the one glove that she could see from the bed, she nervously dragged the satiny fabric between her hands. Maker preserve them, she had dropped one of those darkspawn-cursed gloves when she had fled the kitchen. Opening the door a crack, she peered down the hallway to see whether she could find the fabric lying on the floor of the passage. Nothing. A numbing dread oozed through her limbs, and she walked in stunned silence to the fireplace, leaning her forearm and forehead against the marble mantelpiece.

She had jeopardized everything, simply by forgetting that one cursed piece of clothing. Her quest to find a cure for Alistair. Her hope for her fellow Grey Wardens. Their safety. Abelas. The realization that they now teetered on the precipice of loss overwhelmed her, and she sank to the floor in front of the fire, salty droplets streaming from her eyes and down her face. Noble came up beside her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, letting her tears fall into his fur and raising the smell of wet dog in her nostrils.

It was many minutes later when she heard the door to the bedchamber open. She had managed to regain a portion of her composure: at least she wasn’t clinging to Noble like a drowning woman to a raft. But she could not look up at Abelas when he entered the room. Instead, she stared forward at the fire, her fingers idly tracing the stonework near her knees.

“We must leave immediately,” he said behind her. “I will not argue this point with you. It is no longer safe for us to occupy the master’s house.”

“Why?” she asked weakly, not particularly caring what his answer was.

She heard him begin to pace behind her, his hard-soled boots snapping against the stone of the floor. As she traced the stone beside her, her fingers followed the patterns of the joints between the rocks, her nails slipping into the tiny grooves of rock and mortar.

But Abelas was speaking to her again. Focusing on his words, she heard him say, “… one of the nosiest and most annoying slaves in the Imperium, and the property of one of the master’s most influential patrons. He saw the glove, of course, but I have managed to use my master’s … unusual tastes … to deflect him.” The pacing footsteps stopped as the elf said menacingly, “For now.”

Rhoane nodded, her body overwhelmed by the sense of looming failure, her fingers still roving across the floor. Perhaps she was trying to reassure herself that the growing dread was only an illusion, she thought, that the reality of the hard, stone floor and the pattern of cracks and narrow crevices was what mattered now. Her fingers traveled back and forth, up and down, across the unyielding face of the rocks beneath her.

Until they fell away into space. She started as her fingertip slipped into a wider opening in the floor, not a simple feature of the stone or a seam in the masonry. Looking down, she noticed what actually looked like a hole in one of the rocks that made up the floor in front of the fireplace. Leaning forward, she stared at the black opening, realizing that it had a very specific shape.

“Abelas?” she asked quietly. “Were you able to find locks to match all of those keys that your master kept?”

His voice was testy when he replied, snapping his answer to her. “No. But that has nothing to do with this.”

Shaking her head, she turned to face him. “I think it has everything to do with this. Go and fetch your master’s key ring immediately.”


	15. Part Three -- Chapter Six

Rhoane lifted her candle a little higher in the space of the secret chamber and looked around for a way to dispel more of the darkness. Noticing an oil lamp on a table a few steps to her left, she crossed to it, adjusting the wick and setting it alight with her taper. She was slipping the glasswork covering back into place when Abelas entered the room, the keys he was still holding rattling gently in his hand.

He had seemed honestly surprised when she showed him the hole — an opening that would have remained covered by the hearth rug, if Noble hadn’t insisted on rearranging the lightweight carpet for his own comfort. They had tried the few unidentified keys until one fit perfectly and, holding their breaths in unison, had turned it in the lock. An almost imperceptible click had echoed in the stillness, and a panel of stone from the side of the fireplace had swung toward them. A secret room here in the scholar’s hovel, Rhoane had thought, surprised and relieved at the same time.

Because their inability to find the scholar’s collection had created a still-mounting tension between them. Although the Grey Warden tried to believe that Abelas was being honest with her, she also feared that his long years of slavery had conditioned him to protect his master’s secrets, no matter what. And she had certainly heard enough about the scholar’s hard-won acquisitions while he had still been alive during their journey to Minrathous. It had been difficult for her to accept that the scholar’s personal slave had no idea where this exceptional collection was stored, and Abelas had bristled against her doubt.

Well, now I understand why he didn’t know where the collection was, she thought, looking around the room and beginning to examine the contents. The chamber itself was roughly the same size as the bathing room with which it shared one wall, and because the fireplace of the bedchamber backed onto the secret room, it was cozily warm. A long table occupied most of the length of the wall opposite the doorway, littered with an interesting assortment of papers, books, and items. Bookcases lined the wall farthest away from the door, and an entire suit of armor stood just inside of the secret opening, like a sentinel for the scholar’s clandestine studies. She stepped closer to it and lifted the visor on the helmet.

“Tevinter mage armor,” Abelas said, stepping up beside her and running his finger through the dust that had accumulated on the breastplate. “It is illegal to own a suit like this unless you are of the Altus.”

The Altus: the mages with the highest rank in Imperial society. Rhoane let the visor slip closed and looked at the snaky dragon sculpture mounted on a pedestal beside the armor. As unique as it might be to the scholar, she had seen much larger statues like this during her adventures, most notably in the basements of Vigil’s Keep. It was not what she was looking for and so she moved on.

Abelas stood quietly beside the armor, watching as she lifted objects to examine them and replace them just as carefully. He was of little help here: his master had never insisted that he be trained to read or write, so the script on the spines of the books and the open scrolls meant as much to him as the line work of Dalish tattoos. She asked him to make them both something to eat.

When he returned, she was seated at the table, flipping through the scholar’s private journal. She had looked through most of the scrolls and books that were lying there: none of the sculptural or cultural artifacts littered across the table would help her. She had hoped to find some clue in these private writings that could point her in the right direction. So far, nothing she had read helped.

“I hadn’t realized,” she said around a crust of bread, just as Abelas was leaving the room, “that you had been sent out alone to retrieve so many of these artifacts.” 

He looked back over his shoulder at her and shrugged. “My master was a man of study, not of action,” he replied. “And for the most part, I was simply making connections with the people who had actually unearthed what he would later claim he had located on his own. His patrons in the Imperium paid him well for his ‘discoveries,’ although not enough to lift him into a higher social class.”

She watched as he turned to leave the room. Maker’s breath, couldn’t he see that they were closer to the end of their travails, just because they were together here in this room? She slammed her hand down onto the open binding of the journal, causing it to flip up and fall open at a page further on in the records. Dropping her head into her hands, she stared in blank frustration at the words until they began to make sense through the blur of her anger.

“Abelas!” she called after him, her voice sharper than she had meant for it to be. When he poked his head through the doorway, she asked. “What is this? This circle of monoliths sounds exactly like the image I found in that book earlier today. It’s dated from almost three years ago. ’Returned with canvas; ancient; pre-Imperium? Pictured: eluvian with referential image. Stone monoliths. Mountainous background. Personal collection.’” 

He shook his head at her and started to leave when she asked, “Do you know where this picture is? Do you remember where you went to find it?”

“You are asking me,” he stated, his voice flat and emotionless, “to recall the actions I took three years in the past? One journey out of two score or more that I have made. To recall one particular roll of fabric among all of the artifacts that I have transported from across Thedas for my master?”

“Yes,” she replied, feeling her frustration mount up into a burning fire of anger. “I am asking you to recall this because I feel that it’s important.”

One long stride and he was face to face with her, his voice still flat, but his eyes fiery with a temper that matched her own. “Important?” he questioned. “Who to? To you? To the Grey Wardens?”

“To me and them,” she replied, “and to Alistair.”

“Alistair!” His voice began to reflect his emotions, falling to an intense hiss when he said the king’s name. “Who is he? Your lover? The man you will return to when you have uncovered your treasure?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but Abelas was quicker, capturing her head in his hands and pressing his lips against hers. His mouth was bruising, demanding, and it took her a moment to understand what was happening. How long had he been jealous of her past? she thought, even as she tried to pull away from his ever-tightening grip on her head. Maker take him, only a short time ago she had been crying because she was afraid that she had completely destroyed their security — because she had been terrified for him. Her fright at this moment was completely different. Reaching up, she entangled the fingers of one hand into the long strands of his hair and pulled as hard as she could.

His mouth lifted away from hers for an instant, but all that Abelas did was shift his grips: one hand slid to the back of her skull to hold her head in place and the other ripped her hand from his hair. His lips descended to hers again, and she gasped at the unrelenting pressure of his fingertips against her skin. She tried to use her other arm against him, but he angled his elbow so as to block her access to his exposed skin and the tender points of his torso. Shifting her hips away from him, she moved to raise her knee into his groin, but he anticipated that action, too. He trapped one of her legs between his own and drove her back against the edge of the table.

No, she thought, no! It mustn’t be like this. She had to fight the passion that was stirring inside of her — Maker! it had been so long — and break away from his embrace. She let her body soften within the clasp of his arms and felt him respond: the pressure of his kisses eased and his fingers lessened their vice upon her flesh. She waited, and finally his lips lifted from her own to seek the curve of her throat. It was her moment.

She screamed, “Noble!”

The elf lifted his head to look over his shoulder just as the Mabari vaulted into the room. Before Abelas could adjust to defend himself, the hound had leaped as if to sink his great fangs into the man’s throat, but the dog — either by planning or accident — instead gripped the collar of the elf’s coat between his long, gleaming teeth. The Mabari’s momentum pulled them all across the room, and they crashed into the wall opposite the door with so much force that the wooden bookcase tipped. As they collapsed toward the floor, the structure tottered and fell, and books spilled around them in chaotic disarray.

The torrent of paper gave Rhoane just enough time to reach out and grab Noble’s collar in her hand. “Noble,” she cried, “down!” Tucking her head under her other arm, she waited for the fall of books to stop.

When the last tome had thudded off the shelf, she lifted her arm from her head and opened her eyes — to find Noble staring directly at her, the collar of Abelas’s jacket still gripped tightly in his teeth. The Mabari tilted his head to the side and the ridge of flesh above one eye rose, like a human lifting a single eyebrow. She smiled at her hound and released his collar.

“I’m certain I can handle it from here, Noble,” she said to him.

He snuffed at her in response, both of his eyes rising toward the ceiling of the room. She could almost hear him thinking, “Oh, yeah? Great so far.” Unfortunately, she had to agree with him.

In time, she was able to convince the hound to release Abelas’s collar and return to his place in front of the fire. One down, she thought, one to go.

The elf was sitting beside her on the floor, one of his shoulders pressing against the angle of the bookcase. His elbows were wedged against his knees, and he supported his head in his hands. Rhoane could not see his face: the spill of the books had extinguished the light from the extra candles they had brought into the room, and the lantern had crashed onto the floor and been put out by a rune-carved slab of marble that had conveniently fallen on it. Luckily, the door was still open, and she could see enough of the elf’s form to know he hadn’t been crushed. She reached out to trace the long angle of one ear, but he jerked his head away from her fingers.

“Beat me,” he whispered into the darkness. “It is only what I deserve for treating you so.”

She laughed softly and made a note to tell him one day — not today, Maker help her! — how she had been forced to struggle against her body’s responses to his touch. She crawled beyond the angled edge of the wooden structure so that she could rise and walked into the bedchamber to fetch another candle. As she re-entered the secret storeroom, the light from the taper illuminated the wall that had been hidden by the bookcase and she stopped, deathly still.

Then she started laughing. Loudly and long.

For there on the wall, mounted upon a thin panel of wood, was the canvas of the monoliths, the mountains, and the eluvian.


	16. Part Four -- Chapter One

Rhoane stared up at the painting where it rested against the side of the bed, illuminated by her one bedside candle and the glow from the fire. She was leaning against Noble, using him as a cushion while she studied the faded contours of the work of art, trying to identify as many images as she could. The eluvian was clear: she had seen them before, with Finn and Morrigan, but there just wasn’t enough light yet for her to determine the landscape imaged in its surface. The series of monoliths was familiar, because she had been dreaming about them for weeks, feeling them shudder to the rhythmic chanting of “Thrall! Thrall!” The mountains confused her, but considering she had never left the Circle Tower until she joined the Grey Wardens, she wasn’t surprised. She was relying on Abelas to help her identify that portion of the landscape.

If he was still willing to help her. He had been as silent as one of those monoliths in the painting since she had called to him to come out from under the bookcase and see what they had discovered. Joining her at the edge of the wooden shelves, he had looked incuriously at the canvas, grunting wordlessly when she tried to get him to celebrate this small victory with her. Finally, she had asked him to bring the panel into the bedchamber so that they could light it better and study the images. He was off somewhere now, searching for anything that could be used to cast a glow upon the canvas and its subjects.

But he was taking the Maker’s own sweet time about returning! Bored with waiting, she rose and began stripping off the Tevinter mage robes that she still had not removed. They might believe themselves the mightiest magic users in Thedas, but their clothing was as complicated and confining as their social structure. She managed to strip down to her sleeveless under-dress and was stepping out of the skirts when Abelas walked back into the room.

She saw him stutter to a halt, his eyes locking fearfully on the red spots that were already bruising on her one wrist. Ignoring his hesitation, she dropped the yards of fabric that made up the mage’s skirt to the floor, kicking it away from her, and reaching down to strip off the hard-soled boots and stockings. She was tempted to fling one shoe at his head, but she assumed that he would only believe that he deserved it. Instead, she inhaled deeply and tried to push her anger down into some other part of her self. She could tell that he regretted his actions — he believed that he had overstepped the boundaries of their personal relationship — but when she considered how they had been acting with each other, she had a hard time seeing what exactly those lines were. She had trusted him with most of the stories of her past: life as an apprentice in the Circle Tower, many parts of her Joining with the Grey Wardens, and her travels with her companions. Had she really left Alistair out of their conversation that much? And why should he care?

Lifting her fingers to the hooks and clips that held her hair tightly against the back of her neck, she began to remove them, letting them fall on top of the abandoned skirt on the floor. She heard Abelas moving in the room, too, but she concentrated on ignoring him, still puzzling out the where the line lay between them. As far as she was concerned, he was allowed access to every part of her; the limits were coming from him.

She turned to watch as he finished lighting the last of the candles that he had arranged in a semi-circle in front of the panel. He was kneeling on the floor, moving a discarded wick among the tapers to fire them all. Just as he was finishing with the last one, she walked up behind him and let the last of the clips fall from her hands and onto the floor in front of him. Her hair spilled free, too, swinging around her hips to brush against his face. She heard him inhale deeply: it seemed he was not as indifferent to her presence as he appeared.

In the increased light, she was able to make out even more details of the image that had been captured on the canvas. The mountains in the background were distinctive, one ending in a pair of craggy tors instead of just a single, major peak. She stepped closer to the panel, gathering the hem of her undergarment into her hands so that it did not swing close to any of the tiny flames, and reached out to trace the tip of one finger over their contours.

“Do you know these?” she asked softly, her finger lingering on the layers of paint that created the image of the mountains. “Do you know where they are?”

“Yes,” he replied equally softly, but in the same, emotionless voice that he had used earlier. “They are the Twins of Thalsian. To the north along the border with the Anderfels. But the image is wrong.”

“Wrong?” she questioned. “Wrong how?”

“The peak to the left,” he explained, “should be on the right. It is as though the artist viewed the mountain in a mirror.”

Frowning, she traced her fingers across the paint again. “Or from the north,” she said, quietly.

“Yes, from the north,” he agreed.

“Let us assume,” she said, squatting down in front of the canvas, to study the image more closely, “that you were the artist, and you were capturing a real moment in time in a real location. How far would you say that this set of monoliths is from those mountains?”

“Perhaps thirty leagues.”

Her finger traced one brighter line, a highlight of sun that drifted across one of the stones. “And in which direction? Besides north?”

“To the west,” he said, leaning more closely to the image and pointing toward another peak in the painted range. “This mountain here lies to the east of the Twins when you are south of the range.”

“North and west of the Twins of Thalsian,” she said slowly. “That is where we will find this circle of stones.”

Abelas’s arm was withdrawn, and Rhoane could feel him shrink back into himself as their goal became more defined. But she had to ignore him. The prize was almost within her grasp.

Turning her head, she began to study the image in the painted mirror. First, she saw that the monoliths and carved circles of the image outside of the glass continued into the picture within the mirror. The eluvian in the picture was not a mirror. It was a gateway.

A gateway to a place in the Fade that paralleled a specific location in Thedas. She leaned closer to the canvas, concentrating on the background that was visible beyond the monoliths. She thought that she could see the spire of a city. A city wrapped in gold.

The City. The Golden City.

She realized that she had been holding her breath when the air suddenly rushed out of her lungs. Reaching behind her, she sought for the reassurance of Abelas’s physical presence. A flooding of relief filled her when he took her hand.

“Thirty leagues to the northwest of the Twins of Thalsian,” she said, pressing her palm against the painting, the curve of her thumb and forefinger cupping the yellow spires, “we will find the entrance to the Golden City.”

“What!” His voice exploded behind her, and he dropped her hand and rose to pace the bedchamber. “You are a fool!”

“No,” she replied, rising to her feet and exiting the circle of candles. “I am a dreamer. I have been dreaming of that circle of stones and the Golden City for month upon month.”

He stopped within arm’s reach of her, but with his limbs crossed firmly over his chest. “You are no blood mage,” he retorted. “Only those who have defiled themselves with the study of the use of the blood in magic are able to enter the dreams of others.”

She started walking around the room, gathering her things from where they had been discarded, organizing them so that they could be quickly stuffed into her pack. Shaking her head, she replied, “This is my dream, sent to me by someone in the Fade who wishes to help me find a cure for the Grey Wardens. And for Alistair, the king of Ferelden.” 

“You must love him very much to risk your immortal soul to help him,” she heard him whisper, his voice awash in sorrow.

Continuing her route through the room, she replied in as matter-of-fact a voice as she could manage: “Perhaps. I once loved him as though he was one half of my heart, a piece of my being that — if it were to disappear — would kill me instantly. He was everything that drove me to keep struggling onward against the most overwhelming enemy forces.” She smiled gently to herself, bending down to pick up one of her own leather boots. “And the stubbornness of so many people.”

“But it’s been such a long time since I last saw Alistair,” she continued, “and I have met many other people and creatures of the nations of Thedas. All of them, somehow, are precious to me. There are many, many beings — humans, elves, Grey Wardens, Qunari, golems, Mabari — for whom I would risk my immortal soul.” She paused to look over at the elf, standing alone near the foot of the bed. “But the first person on that list right now … is you.”

His frown deepened, and he shook his head from side to side. “Do not lie to me,” he barked at her, his sorrow driving him into a brief flame of anger. “I am a slave to you, sworn to protect you, no matter where you go. You do not need to try to … flatter me … or persuade me to follow you to … doom.” She could hear the sorrow returning to his voice; she understood the emotion that he was feeling, because she had felt it herself, so long ago. When she had finally understood the burden of being a Grey Warden — the sacrifice of one’s self for the good of all by absorbing the essence of an Old God and being destroyed by it — she had also understood that, in that destruction, she would lose the person who had become the second half of her being. She could feel that emotion stirring again inside of her at the thought of losing Abelas if there were a battle in the Fade — of seeing him fall beneath a flood of darkspawn or corrupted by a demon. This time, though, there was something she could do about it.

Reaching into the bottom of her pack, she found the beautifully embroidered slipper that had been part of her ceremonial robes for Anora and Alistair’s wedding and coronation. She held it against her chest for a moment, recalling with a wistful nostalgia her friends and her former lover. Crossing the room, she stopped in front of Abelas and held out the shoe.

“Take this,” she said firmly. “Take it and escape to Antiva or Ferelden. In Antiva, you can look for a group of assassins called the Crows and ask them to help you find Zevran.” She hurried on when he tried to interrupt her. “Or you can go directly to the king of Ferelden. Either of them will know what this shoe signifies, and they will help you. Go to one of them. Leave me. Now.”

Abelas looked at her and slowly extended one hand, palm up to receive the slipper. She reached out to place the shoe in his hand, but when her fingers touched his palm, he moved quickly and captured her wrist between his own fingers. His grip as not as tight as it had been when he had ripped her hand from his hair in the secret room, but it was determined, and she did not try to escape.

Still looking into her eyes, Abelas said, “No. I will not leave you.”

She lifted one eyebrow at him and shook her head in a tiny movement of denial. “I don’t see that you have any choice in the matter,” she replied, her voice flatly emotionless and equally as determined as his grip on her wrist. “You have demanded that I be your master, so now I shall be. Leave me and carry out my instructions. Now. Slave.”

A look of doubt crossed his face, and his fingers released their grip on her wrist. Slowly, uncertainly, he accepted the slipper from her hand and started walking toward the door. Rhoane sighed; for once, she had been able to keep someone who was close to her away from danger. Even if it had meant that she was alone again. Raising her hand to her eyes, she swiped at the tears that were gathering in her lashes and turned to finish loading her things into her pack. In moments, she was done, and she perched on the side of the bed to dress for her journey, dragging her long stockings up over her knees before reaching for her boots.

She jumped when the bedchamber door slammed shut and looked over her shoulder toward the noise. Abelas was leaning against the wood, one hand pressing against the surface, his head bowed toward the floor. His red-brown hair streamed around his face, blocking it from her sight, but she could see the heavy rise and fall of his shoulders. He was breathing deeply, waging some internal battle, and as much as it made her want to rush to his side, she kept herself still. She had made her decision: Abelas would be safe, and she would struggle on alone.

Then his voice, thrumming with outraged anger and determination, echoed across the room. “I am not a slave,” he said steadily. “I will not be a slave.” Turning back toward her, he continued, “I will make my own choices.”

Swiftly, he crossed to stand in front of her. She saw him pause for a brief moment, and she looked back at him with a small frown forming between her eyebrows. She was about to argue with him when he reached out and swept her from the bed to stand within the circle of his arms. His lips descended to hers, questioning and gentle, and she responded, her eyes closing, her arms twining up around his neck to pull him closer. She met him there, kiss for kiss, feeling that somehow, something was coming to an end, but that there was little left that she could do about it. She moaned softly when his lips left hers, but she eagerly pressed her cheek against his as he gathered her more closely to him, his arms strong and reassuring.

He whispered into her ear, “I choose you.”


	17. Part Four -- Chapter Two

Rhoane leaned more deeply into the shadow that surrounded her in the grey pre-dawn and waited for the guards at the northern gate of Minrathous to open the city for the day. Struggling against an almost overwhelming urge to yawn, she shifted from foot to foot in order to keep the weariness of her body from overwhelming her. Maker’s breath, it had been almost an entire day since she had slept, and there were many miles of travel looming in front of her. It was not necessarily the brightest omen at the beginning of a journey.

Scratching at one thigh, she also had to admit that she was uncomfortable in the clothing that Abelas had insisted she wear. A set of robes meant something completely different here in Minrathous: a mage out in the city streets in the early light of morning would certainly be noticed. He had convinced her to wear a worn pair of his master’s breeches, shirt, jacket, and cloak with a voluminous hood: the only bits of her own clothing were her undergarments and her boots. 

She scanned the shadows on the opposite side of the street, trying to determine where Noble was hiding, but it was impossible. And he was probably lying down, catching a few moments of sleep before they made their escape. How she envied him!

She didn’t even bother to look for Abelas: she knew that he was waiting somewhere farther down the street, deeper in the city. In order for their plan to work, they needed to be seen as separate travelers. So they had split up and each made their own preparations.

The clop of hooves and the rattle and groan of an ox-cart drew her attention as a team pulling a laden wagon passed her hiding place. It rolled toward the gate until the guards called out for it to halt, warning the driver that the city would not be opening for a lone carter and his load. It stopped in the middle of the street, brightening as the sun began to rise.

Rhoane was more interested in the dark shadow that detached itself from a doorstep and slipped beneath the wagon. Smart fellow, she thought, admiring her Mabari’s ingenuity. No guard was going to take the time to look underneath a laden wagon; they were going to look at the cargo and wait for their palms to be greased before they let the ox-cart pass. The hound would wait in the shadows beneath the wagon and follow it out of the city when it was finally given the order to proceed.

More people began to gather around the cart as the dawn’s light increased, and she pulled herself more tightly into the receding darkness. She wasn’t worried that she would attract the attention of these people: these were the working classes of the city — the slaves and shopkeepers who had specific tasks to finish in these early moments of the day. And she knew that a similar crowd was gathering on the other side of the gate. None of these people had time for another stranger in the crowd. Her focus was on getting past the guards without attracting too much of their attention.

The first rays of the sun topped the wall surrounding Mintrathous, and a great horn blast rent the air. The guards stepped to the side as the portcullis was raised and the massive bar was lifted from its braces on the inside of the gates. With a heavy groan, the great northern gate of the city of Minrathous opened for another day.

The Grey Warden was tempted to hold her breath until the wagon that Noble had hidden under passed through the gates, but the guards were taking their time, intent on extorting as much from the carter as they possibly could. They climbed into the wagon, uncapping barrels and slamming their fists into the bags of grain that also made up part of the cargo. Finally, the carter could no longer stand the pressure, and he let some coin slip from his purse and onto the floorboards of the wagon’s seat. The very observant — she looked at her hound’s shadow and sniggered — guard captain scooped the bribe into one gauntleted hand and waved the carter through the gates.

The shadow under the wagon set out in perfect unison with the motion of the wheels.

Rhoane sighed. That was Noble freed from Minrathous. Abelas was next.

She still wondered why they could not have left the city together, but the elf was certain that they both were in danger. The visit from the patron’s slave had shaken him more than she could understand, and although they had arrived together as master and slave, he refused to believe that they could escape as easily. Someone would recognize him, especially among the slaves that would be waiting to exit the city. And they would wonder where his master, the scholar, was. Raising suspicion in front of the gate guards was too dangerous: they would disguise themselves and pass through into the countryside alone.

Which was why Rhoane almost didn’t recognize Abelas when he came down the street, hunched over beneath the weight of a half-dozen buckets looped over a long, straight piece of wood. A heavy coat was draped over one end of the thick stick, and the buckets bumped unsteadily against each other. He had a cap pulled down to cover his forehead, and his long hair was tucked up in the back of the hat. There was nothing he could do with his ears, but the weight of the array of buckets forced him to stoop, making him appear shorten than he really was. Because he had waited until the majority of the morning’s earliest travelers had exited the city, he was able to walk steadily toward the gate.

Until a guard hailed him.

His step slowed, and Rhoane heard him joke that the missus always made him take his coat, no matter the weather. The guard laughed and told the elf , “I hope she’s good for a tumble, then, if she’s going to keep you so far under her thumb.” Waving in response, the elf crossed into the darkness between the inner and outer gates.

Abelas was outside the city. Now it was her turn. Stepping from the shadows and into an alleyway, she shifted the pack on her back and tucked a make-shift cane under one arm. She pulled the edges of her cloak forward so that they brushed together over her worn trousers and rearranged the folds over her back so that she looked naturally hunched. Taking a deep breath, she hobbled toward the gate, pretending to lean on her cane. Slowly, steadily, she reminded herself, and remember to limp, for the Maker’s sake.

She could see the guards stiffen as she approached them, just on the tail end of another tiny knot of travelers. Because she had to adjust her walking speed to compensate for her pretend limp, that small group pulled ahead of her, leaving her alone to hobble past the guards. She could feel their eyes watching her, but she kept moving forward, unwilling and unable to stop: they had not called for her to halt. and she needed to flee the city. It was as simple as that.

“Cripple,” she heard one of the guards mutter just as she came within the range of their spears. “Demon spawn.” Another cleared his throat and spat directly in front of her: determined to continue, she deliberately stepped on the moisture and ground it into the dirt of the city street. She was tempted to set the seat of all their pants afire— like she had in the Circle Tower when the boys teased her — but Abelas had warned her that she could use no magic until they were outside of the city. Gritting her teeth together, she limped forward, into the passageway between the inner and outer gates.

When the rock struck the back of her head, she staggered a little, trying to block out the cheers and laughter of the guards behind her. She could feel blood begin to ooze down the side of her head and pain shot — a hot, spearing of pain — from one side of her skull to the other. Anger burned as brightly inside her, and she struggled against the urge to drown the guards in a storm of lightning. “Calmly,” she heard Wynne’s voice come to her from Maker only knew where, “Emotionlessly. Focused.”

The guards on the other side of the gate were busy extorting an admission fee from a large wagon filled with barrels of brandy from Antiva, and she only saw one guard make some kind of warding sign against evil when he noticed her. She limped forward down the road.

“Cripple!” one of the guards shouted. Freezing in place, Rhoane slowly turned back toward Minrathous, her eyes on the ground at her feet. She started when a bottle shattered on the ground in front of her and the acrid smell of urine rose up into her nostrils, the liquid splashing over the bottom edge of her cloak, the legs of her breeches, and her boots. She heard the guards laughing and choked down her anger.

“Maker bless you,” she called out in a low, scratchy voice and turned to hobble away.

It was an excruciating walk along the road away from Minrathous. She could not straighten to her full height for fear that someone would suddenly appear and question why she was walking along the road with a full pack of goods under her cloak. Pinching her nose shut, she tried to block out the smell that now rose up toward her with every step she took. One step, two … Maker preserve her, how could she travel all the way to the Twins of Thalsian smelling like this? Would Noble even let her anywhere near him? She wouldn’t blame him if he refused to share her pallet with her any more.

Not that he would be the only one under her coverlet now. She was so tired because, after they had packed everything they thought they needed for their journey, Abelas had kept her awake for the rest of the few short hours of the night. Taking her over to the scholar’s bed, he had scooped her against him, her back to his front and let his fingers trail across her thigh and hip, over her arm, up to cup and caress her breast, and lacing through her black hair. Maker’s breath, who could sleep with such tantalizing attention being paid to her flesh? And she didn’t have the heart to push him away or scoot to the edge of the bed to separate their bodies. She lay there, simmering under his touch, waiting for the first fingers of the pre-dawn to lighten the room.

Dragging her mind away from both her exhaustion and her memory of Abelas’s touch, she found that she was beginning to cross a wide, stone bridge. Looking over one side-rail, she saw that it crossed a thundering whitewater of current that raced and splashed through a valley of rocky barricades. The elf had told her to step thirty paces beyond the end of the bridge and look for a game trail to her left that led off into the woods. She quickened her pace, hopeful to find her traveling companions.

But she had moved too soon. As she topped the arch of the span, she saw a man coming toward her, wearing the armor of a magister of the Tevinter Imperium. Steadying her pace, she limped slowly forward, pressing herself against the right railing of the bridge in order to give the mage as much room as possible on the crossing. She passed him just as he was stepping onto the bridge, and she let her breath out in a long, low sigh as she hobbled on.

“Little one,” he called out to her, his voice coating her in a shower of oily discontent. “For you.” He flipped a coin toward her, sending it end over end to land at her feet. She stared at the shiny metal and started to reach for it when she realized that it was a trap. Looking up at the magister from under the edge of her cloak’s hood, she shook her head at him and began to back away.

“But it is a gift,” he said to her, his voice hypnotically suggestive, reassuring, almost making her believe that the words he spoke were true. “A comfort for your warped and twisted body.”

Without stopping her backward momentum, she shook her head again and croaked, “It is too much.” Warped and twisted, was she? Is that what the Chantry taught in Tevinter, that the deformities of the body were a reflection of the deformities of the soul? She looked quickly behind her — down the road in the direction she wanted to travel — but the landscape was empty. Just as well. If she couldn’t convince him to leave her alone, it would be better if no one saw her run away.

When she looked back, she realized that he was following her away from the bridge. With a few leisurely strides, he came up in front of her, and she realized that — right now — it was useless to continue to back away from him. She watched his body from under the hood of her cloak — her imaginary stoop prevented her from meeting his eyes — looking for any clue of what he would do next. In an attempt to take some control of the situation, she pretended to fluff the front of her cloak, releasing a nauseating wave of the stench of urine into the air between them. She saw him retreat half a step and raise his hand to cover his nose, and she started backpedaling as quickly as she could, increasing the distance between them. Dropping his hand from his face, he pointed a finger at her: she turned and ran.

She could feel the spell wrap around her, calling to her blood, trying to convince her that the man behind her was a friend. Ignoring the urge to turn and go to him, she raced away from Minrathous, the pack on her back bouncing heavily against her. Keeping her eyes to the left side of the road, she looked for the game trail.

She heard the mage curse behind her and felt the chilly blast of a spell that was meant to freeze her in place. Again, she resisted and plunged into the overgrowth to her left when she found the pathway. She needed to get into the trees, to find a place to drop the pack, and prepare. Hugging the crutch against her chest, she raced along the narrow trail toward the forest, her breath coming hard into her lungs. She was too tired for this, she thought, even as she took her first step between the trees.

And was frozen in place. The mage had cast his spell while she was distracted, thinking about her weariness instead of concentrating on what happening around her. She heard the metal of his armor shush — plate against plate — as he approached through the tall grasses that lined the roadway. She didn’t fight the spell physically: she knew that was impossible and would only tighten its hold on her. Instead, she forced herself to relax, to calm her racing heart and straining muscles. It was a different kind of struggle, but one that she had been forced to focus on time and again in the Circle Tower. She strove forward into the calm at the center of her being.

She heard the mage come up behind her and then caught the dark silhouette of him in the corner of her eye. 

“Well, this has been a pretty romp,” he said, and she could feel his fingers twisting into the loose hairs in front of her ear. “Who would have thought I would have discovered such a remarkable mage in such an ugly form?” As she stood, trapped, he came around to look into her face, revealed when her hood had fallen onto her shoulders. He reached out, intending to take her chin in his hand when she struck, swinging the crutch up against the side of his head and forcing him to fall to his knees. Quickly, she swung again, striking his head and knocking him unconscious. Clutching the crutch to her chest, she looked back toward the road: someone was just cresting the bridge, moving on the road away from Minrathous. She stepped into the shadows of the forest and raced on.


	18. Part Four -- Chapter Three

She found Abelas — his buckets abandoned, but still with the long stick in his hands and a large pack on his own back — and Noble at the branching of the trail, just as the elf had promised. Handing her crutch to the elf and shaking her head, she motioned for him to lead them through the forest and followed as he set off along the path. Every time he looked back over his shoulder at her, she motioned him onward, not willing to stop until she felt that they were far enough away from the Tevinter mage. And it was going to take a while until she felt safely away from that magister, she admitted to herself.

They walked until close to midday when she reached out and touched the elf’s shoulder. Coming up beside him, she whispered, “Can you find us some place to hide and rest for a while?”

Nodding, he led them from the game path and deeper into the undergrowth of the forest. She let Noble move in front of her: the resilient Mabari’s heavily muscled body was much more efficient at clearing a pathway than hers was. But some tiny whisper of paranoia urged her to replace as much of the flora in its original position as she could, and she lingered behind, listening for the sound of someone following them. After she was certain they had not been followed, she moved on after the elf and her hound.

When she found him, Abelas was standing beside a growth of vines that had wrapped itself around the trunk of a large, tall tree. As she stepped closer to the elf, he lifted a large section of the vines away from the trunk and motioned for her to enter the space that was created beneath them. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled under the canopy of the vines, only to find Noble already lying in the hidden space. Shrugging off her pack, she collapsed against her hound and hugged him to her tightly, ignoring the loud snuffle that came from him when he smelled her clothing. He rose and turned his back to her, breaking her embrace, lay down and fell asleep.

Abelas crawled in behind them and asked, “What has happened? There is worry in your face.” His nose wrinkled and he continued, “I did not realize that an animal had found this place so recently.”

“No,” she replied, untying the laces of the cloak and letting it slip from her shoulders, “that’s me.” In a quiet voice, she told him about her walk through the gates, the guards’ abuse, and then crossing the bridge. Hesitating, she explained her encounter with the magister and how she had escaped: the frown on Abelas’s face deepened.

“He will have continued on to Minrathous,” the elf reasoned, “either to gather his own slaves to search or to report you to the authorities. I cannot guess what a magister would think of a mage choosing to travel in disguise in Tevinter. He would think it odd at least.”

“At least,” Rhoane murmured, opening the pack she had carried and searching for a robe to wear. She was pulling it out when Abelas said, “No robes.”

“Well, I can’t wear this,” she said, pulling at the loose cloth of the breeches she was disguised in. “I reek, and we don’t have time to clean any of these things.” She pointed to the cloak and her pants: the boots had been through too many liquids — marsh waters, garbage piles, blood — for her to worry about their condition. Besides, the leather was properly cured and repelled most of the moisture that gathered on them. But she wanted away from the smell of the trousers.

The elf dropped his pack onto the dirt between them and opened it, drawing out a pair of his own pants for her. Smiling at him, she shucked off her boots and unbuttoned the rank breeches, kicking them away from her as quickly as she could. She slipped into the pants that he offered her, buttoned them on, and pulled her boots back onto her feet. Wrapping the smelly pants inside the cloak — with the stained and reeking edges turned to the inside, she shoved the discarded parts of her disguise in with her other things and closed her pack. “Ready,” she said, slipping one arm through a strap on her pack.

Reaching out, Abelas slipped the strap back down from her shoulder. “We should rest,” he said, holding up his hand when she started to argue, “if only for a short time. And you should eat.”

Her body overruled her mind, her stomach growling loudly at the thought of food. She accepted the hard biscuit that the elf offered her and nibbled at it, looking up at the dome that the vines created above them. “It is called ‘Slaves’ Escape’,” he said, looking in the same direction as she was. “The vine starts at the roots of the tree and attaches itself to the trunk, absorbing its nourishment like a parasite. When the tree begins to die, the younger vines, which are higher up on the tree, detach and collapse to the ground, creating hollows such as this one, and reaching across the forest floor to find a new tree to invade. The slaves share stories of these hiding places throughout Tevinter, thus the name.”

“How did you know this was here?” she asked, wiping the crumbs from her lap.

Abelas shook his head, saying, “I did not. But I was happy to find it.”

She smiled and leaned back against her pack, allowing herself to relax slightly, feeling the peace of this hidden hollow seep into her bones. Her eyes closed, and she had begun to fall asleep when she sudden sat up, hissing, “My staff. Where is my staff?”

“It is here,” the elf said, dragging the long stick that he had carried the buckets on over to his side and removing layers of cloth and the heavy coat from one end. Without the fabric covering it, Rhoane could see the arched bracings that held the gem on the top of her staff and the intertwined sets of runework carved into the sides. She sighed in relief.

“And your weapons?” she asked. As she watched, he drew the crutch that she had been using onto his lap and began unwrapping the underarm padding and the heavy leather bindings that were twined around it. The covering fell away, revealing his sword blade and his unstrung bow. Reaching into his pack, Abelas retrieved the cross guard for the sword and slid it into place, locking it where it belonged.

“Better?” he asked quietly.

Reaching out to take her staff in her hand, she nodded. “Should we go now?” she asked, fighting the urge to let her eyes slide shut again.

“Sleep,” Abelas said, pulling her toward him and lying down so that she could rest her head on his shoulder. “I will awaken you all too shortly, and we will continue.”

He was true to his word, and her body seemed to scream its exhaustion as they slipped from beneath the interlacings of the Slaves’ Escape vines and back between the trees of the forest. Abelas lead them north and west throughout the afternoon, veering always into the deeper growth of the forest and away from places that may have been cleared by humans. The light was dimming, the reddened rays of the sun painting the tips of the tallest trees, when a voice suddenly interrupted the quiet.

“Stand, shemlen,” it called out to them. “Do not move, or your life will be forfeit.”

Rhoane froze, raising her hands at her sides, grateful that her staff was strapped to her back. Noble was wagging his tail rapidly from side to side just in front of her; looking over her shoulder, she saw that Abelas had his bow out and an arrow drawn to his cheek. She started to reach for him when the voice called out again.

“Do not move, shem.”

Another voice called out at the same time, “Do not fight us, lethallin, and we will take you into our clan.”

Keeping her hands wide, Rhoane called, “Ma nuvenin, elvhen falon. Andaran atish’an.”

The forest fell quiet around them, and the Grey Warden motioned for Abelas to lower his bow. Frowning back at her, he kept the arrow firmly at his cheek. She smiled and shook her head.

A Dalish elf separated herself from the shadows of the forest on the path ahead of them and crossed to stand in front of Rhoane and her companions. Noble whuffed at the girl, his tail wagging even more furiously, but she only glanced at him briefly before coming to a stop in front of the Grey Warden. “We will not be fooled, shemlen,” the Dalish said, crossing her arms over her chest. “The mages of Tevinter do not greet us as friend.”

“I’m not of Tevinter,” Rhoane replied. “I’m the Grey Warden Rhoane from Ferelden. Please, let me speak with your Keeper.”

“She lies,” a male voice called from the trees. “Kill her and let us free lethallin from her control.”

“I will cut you from the trees if you touch her,” Abelas growled behind her.

“Please, everyone,” the Grey Warden called, “be still, and let’s talk about this.”

The male voice called out again, “She cannot be allowed to endanger the clan, lethallan. Kill her now.”

Another Dalish elf stepped from the trees, her bow drawn tight, aimed directly at the Rhoane’s face. “Lethallin,” she said, addressing Abelas, “come away from this shemlen so that we need not fear injuring you. You have no need to continue to serve her.”

“Lower your bow,” he replied, his voice hoarse from the tension. “You will not threaten her.”

The two Dalish women exchanged glances, and the one with the bow let her arrow fall. “We will take you to our Keeper,” the first woman said to Rhoane, “if you will release this elf from his slavery to you and allow him to join our clan. Choose otherwise, and you will die.”

“You may speak with him about that,” Rhoane replied, “if you wish. But, please, could we do that on our way to your camp?”

The leader of the Dalish scouting party nodded and started off through the forest. Noble leaped off after her, bounding around the girl in playful glee: she tried to ignore him, but his joyful energy was infectious. She began to smile and soon found a broken branch to throw for him to fetch.

Two other Dalish bled out of the twilight under the trees and began to walk beside Abelas, questioning him all along the path to the encampment. Rhoane had to smile to herself: he stubbornly refused to answer even the simplest questions about himself or their relationship and trudged on in complete silence.

They passed under an ancient bone archway and into the circle of aravels that defined the outlines of the Dalish camp. Many of the elves looked up at their arrival, and other guards moved toward them with their weapons drawn. Near the campfire in the center, the Dalish scout leader told them to wait and left to find the Keeper.

Rhoane stood quietly, her hands clasped together at her waist, watching her hound romp among the elven children, licking their hands and letting them embrace him. At least he has made some friends, she thought.

An older Dalish man and the scouting party leader returned to the circle of light around the central campfire. He greeted her: “Andaran atish’an, stranger. Why have to come into the forest today?”

“Andaran atish’an, Keeper. I am traveling to the Anderfels,” she lied — a small lie only, she told herself, “and may be hunted by the Tevinter Imperium. I need to move with as much secrecy as possible.”

“And he who travels with you?” the Keeper continued.

“I’ve told your scouts that he may answer for himself,” she replied. “Perhaps he would be more honest with them if he didn’t feel that my life was in danger.”

“Is this so, lethallin?” the Keeper stepped closer to Abelas and addressed him. “Do you fear for this shemlen’s life?”

Abelas met the Keeper’s eyes with a clear, direct gaze. “Always,” was all he said in reply.

The older elf laughed and walked over to Rhoane. Slipping his hand through her arm, he said, “Let us walk together, and you will tell me your story.”

The Grey Warden and the Keeper strolled through the Dalish encampment. He was a good listener — being the keeper of the traditions and language of your race probably made him so, she thought — and he asked questions rarely. She talked with him as honestly as she could until he halted, pulling her to a stop.

“Much time has passed since the Dalish were called into service by the Grey Wardens, Alistair and Rhoane,” he said. “But the memory is still fresh in the minds of elvhen. But I cannot say that others have not tried to use this knowledge to their advantage. Especially by claiming to be the female Grey Warden. It is harder to pretend to be the King of Ferelden.”

She smiled and nodded. “What can I do to convince you, Keeper?” she asked.

He patted her arm and said soothingly, “There is nothing for you to do, lethallan. I knew who you were when you I saw you standing in the firelight: Lanaya has described you in great detail at Arlathvhen.”

“Then why did you want to talk to me alone?” she asked, turning to face him.

The Keeper looked up at her and smiled. “To hear your story and read the truth of it from your heart. To understand why you have done the things that I have heard that you have done for all the races of Thedas. You are quite a remarkable woman, Rhoane, the Grey Warden, Hero of Ferelden.” He stopped and looked out into the darkness of the surrounding forest. “Most importantly of all, though, I needed to know whether you would release lethallin to our clan. While we are strong, we are relatively few in number, and there are many things for the elvhen to fear in the wilderness of Tevinter. We would not refuse any elf who chose to return to us.”

“Ir abelas, Keeper,” she replied softly, staring back at the distant glow of the campfire. “I am sorry for the state of all the Dalish people in Thedas. I understand what it means to be confined and scorned simply because of who you are. But I can claim no control over Abelas — his actions or his decisions.”

The Keeper looked up at her, a question in his eyes. “Abelas?” he asked.

“He had no name when we met: he was simply called ‘slave.’ He allowed me to give him the name after he had come to know me better during our travels.”

“Yes,” he said, turning back toward the fire and beginning to retrace their steps. “It is a sorrow not to know the people who have given you their life blood. And to exist as a tool to the desires of any man. It is a good name for one who has never lived among the Dalish.”

She sighed and gathered her courage around her: she hadn’t realized it would be this difficult to try — once again — to release Abelas from his commitment to her. “If you or your clansmen can convince him to stay with you, I will not stand in your way.”

Her honesty caused the Keeper to halt again. “Truly?” he asked, the surprise in his voice mirrored in his face. “You must believe that you are traveling into great danger to be willing to give up one who holds so much of your heart.”

“Yes,” she replied simply, fight against the sudden ache that gripped her chest.


	19. Part Four -- Chapter Four

Rhoane and the Keeper joined the circle of Dalish families that had gathered in the firelight. They were passing food amongst themselves and listening to the clan’s story teller as she entertained the children with tales of Fen’Harel, the trickster wolf god. The Grey Warden could see Noble sitting beside the loremaster, his entire attitude attentive. Smiling, she accepted the cup of fresh water and the bowl of food that were handed to her and sat down on the opposite side of the fire from Abelas.

The Dalish were certainly trying to charm him, she thought, twisting a piece of bread in the thick gravy at the bottom of her bowl. Several of the children were asking him about his bow and what it was like to live in a big city, and two young Dalish women — just below the age when they would be allowed to marry, the Grey Warden guessed — were sitting near him and whispering to each other. Rhoane had to laugh and quash down the little shimmer of jealousy that sparked inside of her. She had known that the elf was handsome, but it was interesting to see that other women thought so, too.

She ate her meal slowly, feeling her exhaustion creep up on her with every bite. When her bowl and cup were empty, she handed them to one of the mothers around the fire and rose to stand behind Abelas. Leaning down, she whispered, “Stay as long as you like and hear these stories. The Keeper asks that we camp near his aravel.” Pressing him down to force him to keep his seat, she turned and walked into the moonlight. She found the Keeper’s landship in the middle of the circle and gratefully unrolled her bedding on the ground beside it. Stripping down to her undergarments, she slipped under her coverlet and tried to fall asleep.

Her body longed to descend into the darkness, but her mind was racing, unwilling to still. She couldn’t help wondering whether this was the last night that she would be spending in Abelas’s company: whether the Dalish could convince him to return to a culture and family group that was so much more truly his than following a Grey Warden mage into the Fade. How would she find the Twins of Thalsian and the circle of monoliths without him? Could he accompany her to the northern side of the mountains and then return to the Dalish? Would she be able to send him away and cross the doorway to the Golden City by herself, with only Noble to guard her? She sighed and yawned, turning onto her side and pulling the blanket up over shoulder.

She awoke to the pleasant sensation of a strong torso and lean hips settling under the blanket behind her. Without opening her eyes, she turned to her other side in Abelas’s arms, letting him kiss her gently, tingling in so many places when his fingers ran across her back and buttocks. Sighing against his mouth, she ran her hands up his neck to pull his hair loose and let it fall around his shoulders. She whispered his name — the name that she had given him — and his touch became rougher, more demanding. Digging her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders, she twisted her hips against his, listening to his gasp of passion in the moonlight. His hands tightened on her flesh, and she swung one of her legs up over him to rest across his waist while his lips trailed over her face and down her neck. When his mouth brushed over the curve of one breast, she shivered, her entire body shaking when his lips closed around the nipple. Slowly, with infinite care, he caressed and teased her flesh, until at last he pressed her onto her back and sheathed himself within her trembling heat. She rose to meet his strokes, her legs coming up to lock around his waist and pull him to her. She felt the bright blossom of her fulfillment ripple through her just moments before he groaned his own satisfaction against her ear. He rested there on top of her for a long moment, and she worked to record the press of his contours against her into her memory.

At last, he rolled onto his back, pulling her to pillow her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered, his fingers twining in her long hair.

“For that?” she laughed. “It was wonderful, but it wasn’t that remarkable.”

He chuckled in return. Maker’s breath, she loved that noise. He laughed so infrequently that it was a treasure to her every time she heard the sound.

“No, not for that.” He pulled her more tightly against him and kissed top of her head. “For allowing me to listen to the stories of the Dalish.” He twined his fingers between hers where her hand was lying on his chest. “And for letting me choose for myself.”

She swallowed hard, tears stinging in her eyes. “Of course, Abelas,” she replied. “It is the very least that I can do for you.”

“No,” he said, “it is the very most. To be told that you can rise above the level of a slave — that you are free to walk a path that is your own and choose the ways that the path will lead. These are the greatest gifts that anyone could ever receive.”

“I think I understand,” she whispered back, her eyes drifting closed. She had never been able to make those choices for herself, she realized. From the moment she was sent to the Circle Tower, her life had been circumscribed, driven forward by outside forces — her teachers, the Grey Wardens, the darkspawn, and the Archdemon. Even now, she was searching for something that had been offered to her as an idea from other people, for the benefit of other people. Yes, she thought, to choose for one’s self after such a life would be a true blessing.

“I learned something from the Dalish,” he whispered to her in the darkness. “I would like to see if I have it correctly.”

“Of course,” she replied, forcing her eyes open. He rose up on his elbow beside her, letting her roll onto her back, his fingers tracing the soft curves of her chin and cheeks.

“I believe,” he said, “that it is ‘ma vhenan.’ Is that how you say it, ma vhenan?”

Ma vhenan: my heart.

“Yes, ma vhenan,” she whispered back, “that’s exactly how you say it.”


	20. Part Five -- Chapter One

Cresting the last ridge, Rhoane looked down into the sweep of the deep valley that ran behind the Twins of Thalsian in the Hunterhorn Mountains. In the distance to the east, she could see the shimmer of a great body of water and the wrap of trees along its shoreline, rising up into the downslope below her. She studied the relationship of the Twins of Thalsian to her location and then decided that she needed to refer to the painting. She slipped the strap of her pack from one shoulder and started to ease it to the ground.

“Let me help you with that, ma vhenan,” Abelas said behind her.

She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Abelas,” she said lightly. “I’m perfectly capable of dropping my own pack into the dirt.” Squatting down, she shifted her clothing and supplies to the sides until she found what she was looking for: the ancient canvas of the monoliths and the eluvian. Spreading it on the ground in front of her, she studied the brush strokes. The elf knelt beside her and also looked at the painting.

“If you were to ask me,” he began, and when she nodded, continued, “it appears that we are perhaps half a league too far to the west. We will have to track back to the east before nightfall.”

“I agree,” she said, folding the canvas back upon itself and stuffing it between her spare shirts. “But I had hoped that we could camp early and get some extra sleep.”

“Had you?” he asked, trailing one finger across the exposed skin of her forearm. She shivered and wrapped her arms around his, leaning her head against his shoulder.

The climb through the mountains had been trying: this was not a heavily trafficked part of the wilderness, and no monarchy or trade consortium had paid to have a roadway cut through this part of the Hunterhorn range. Today’s exertion had caused her first to shuck off her jacket and then roll up her sleeves in order to reduce her temperature and thus exposing her skin to Abelas’s touch. She looked over at Noble, who was unashamedly panting, his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth and dripping saliva onto the rock of the mountains.

“Half a league, did you say?” she murmured, squinting up at the afternoon sun. There was still enough light for them to travel that far, even though they would have to negotiate over and around the rocky outcroppings that covered the slopes. She sighed, and rubbed her cheek against the side of the elf’s arm.

He rose to his feet and held one hand out to her, saying, “Perhaps less. We will have to continue to verify our position with the painting as we go.”

Taking his hand, she rose to her feet and followed behind him as he picked out at pathway between the rocks. They had discovered early in their travels through the wilderness that Abelas had an uncanny knack for finding the easiest and most direct trail — through undergrowth, over streams and mountains, and across the grasslands — and she followed him with unwavering loyalty. Noble trotted along before and behind, letting his nose lead him as much as anything else.

The sun was pinkening the western skies when she decided to call a halt: they could find the correct angle tomorrow. Right now, she needed a warm meal and to sleep. She called Noble to her and frowned when he didn’t immediately respond.

“Noble!” she called again.

She heard him barking in front of her and slightly above on the side of the mountain. Following the sound, she worked her way up the slope and found him standing at the entrance to what was a depression in the rock of the hillside. Too shallow to be a cave, it would still offer them protection from any chance rain and the wind. Dropping her pack at the back of the cavelet, she looked around for Abelas, only to see him coming toward her from the eastern slope of the mountain.

“Welcome home,” she laughed, digging her drinking flask from her pack and holding out her hand for his. She waited while he slipped his pack to the ground and accepted the half-full container from him. “Noble and I will go find some water.”

Abelas called out to the hound, “Mind her well, Noble.”

The Mabari looked over his shoulder and huffed back at the elf. “You hurt his feelings,” she said, kissing Abelas gently on the cheek. “After all, he’s been taking care of me a lot longer than you have.”

“And better than I have?” he asked, gripping her waist in one arm and pulling her against him.

“Well …” she said, wriggling away from his hands and following her hound down the side of the mountain.

After some searching, they managed to find a low tumble of rocks where the rain gathered before it dripped away through the tiny cracks in the stone. Noble greedily slopped great mouthfuls of the water up with his tongue — luckily he waited until after she had filled both her and Abelas’s flasks. She sat on the rim of rock that cradled the water and watched the sun sink in the distance.

When the Mabari has drunk his fill, he came over to lie beside her, and she reached out to rub his ears. He dropped his head into her lap and sighed, closing his eyes and enjoying the attention.

She laughed at him, “I suppose it would be rude to ask you to go and flush us up some supper.” He responded by rolling onto his back and stretching his hind legs: she rubbed his belly and watched the sun splash the sky with color.

When the last fingerlings of light had turned deep indigo, she rose and climbed back up the mountain to the cavelet where Abelas had started a small, confined fire and was turning something on thin spears of wood over the heat.

“Charred rabbit again?” she asked, thinking for a brief, fond moment of Alistair and Morrigan. She placed his flask beside his pack and crossed to where she had dropped her own belongings, slipping heavily to the ground and lying back against the curve of the leather container.

Abelas lifted one meat-cover stick. “It is some kind of vermin, but I could not tell you what. It seems to be well-meated, however, and was exceptionally plump.”

“Plump, mystery vermin,” she mused. “As long as it’s not a nug. Leliana would have my head.”

It seemed a night for nostalgia: after they had eaten, she sat with Abelas and Noble in the light of the fire, telling the elf some of the more ridiculous aspects of being a Grey Warden trying to unite an entire nation against the darkspawn scourge. Abelas smiled at her in the flickering light, but she could tell that there was something else bothering him. Rising at last, she watched him douse the fire and toss the last scraps of the vermin meat to Noble. Slipping to the back of the cavelet, she rolled out her bedding, and sat down to slip off her boots, watching as the elf walked along the ledge in front of their camp and tugged at Noble’s ears. The Mabari whuffed at him and moved to sit at the front of the opening. Abelas stooped and crossed to her side, placing his own bed beside hers.

She tugged the sleeves of her shirt back down and slipped into her jacket: warm days did not always mean warm nights. Looking over at the silent elf, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, pulling his own boots off and placing them near his sword. “Unknown, unknowable.” He shrugged his jacket on again, too, and settled onto his back, his hands clasped behind his head. “I dive into the depths of fear for you, ma vhenan. And I do not know whether I will ever surface.”

She came to lie beside him, propped on her elbow, her breasts crushing against the side of his body. With the tip of one finger, she traced the hard planes of his face and the lush softness of his lips. Sighing, she dropped her head onto his shoulder and said, “Would it help you at all to know that I am terrified for you? That I’ve wished many times that you had taken the slipper to Alistair or stayed with the Dalish? That I long to find some way to send you somewhere else and keep you safe from whatever happens next?”

She felt his fingers pulling the clasps and pins from her braids, releasing the raven tresses from their normal confinement. Rolling her onto her back, he pulled her hair free and spread it out around her like a nimbus of darkness. Threading one long, thick section away from the others, he lifted it to his nose, and she heard him inhale her scent.

“At least I do not swim alone, ma vhenan,” he said, pulling her back into his arms and settling down to let them both sleep. She let her eyes drift closed.

“Thrall! Thrall!” The chant rose around her, seeming to vibrate through the very rock at her feet. She looked up at the pedestal in the center of circles of stone — at least she wasn’t standing up there this time — and noticed that the shape on the top of it seemed to move, swaying with the rhythm of the shouting voices. A sickening, acidic green glow surrounded the pedestal and whatever or whoever was standing upon it. Looking around her, she found the eluvian — the gateway between worlds — and saw the ancient elven script that decorated its frame flare with the same bilious green light. Looking through the mirror to the other side, she saw the triumphant faces of a score or more of darkspawn and watched in horror as one clawed hand pressed through the eluvian. Reaching over her shoulder, she lifted her staff in her hand, but then stalled, uncertain. Which was the more important foe?

As she stood there, struggling with her decision, one of the over-extended arms of the creature reached out and wrapped around her neck. Her hands flew up to the constricting tendril, trying to pull it away from her throat, fighting to take just one more deep breath.

She sprang awake, her Grey Warden senses tingling, telling her that there were darkspawn nearby. Darkspawn? It had been years since she had felt them close to her. What were they doing here? Now? Sitting up, she pressed one hand over Abelas’s mouth and held one finger over her lips with the other one, silently begging him to be silent. He nodded, and she pulled her hand away. Slipping her boots onto her feet, she signaled for him to wait where he was. Then she turned over onto her belly, slithering across the stone of the cavelet until she was beside Noble and looked over the lip of the rock shelf down into the valley. Her Mabari was tense, his hackles standing straight away from his body, his mouth snarling soundlessly at the scent and tramp of darkspawn. She reached up to rub the dog’s head, whispered into his ear for him to stay, and slipped away down the slope of the mountain.

She followed the sounds of the darkspawn into the line of trees, keeping her eyes always in motion to check for new groups of creatures coming up on her from the side or behind. Moving as soundlessly as she could, she made her way from the darkness beneath one tree to the deep shadows of another. When the forest around her began to brighten, she slowed her pace, moving more cautiously every time she drew closer to the light. Pressing up against the moss-covered side of a rock, she peered around the edge …

And saw the eluvian.

The darkspawn were gathered around it, looking at the mirror from every angle. Two of the more powerful creatures seemed to be arguing with each other, and one cast a spell directly at the frame of the mirror, watching to see what happened. Rhoane saw the bolt pass through the eluvian and emerge from the other side, crashing into the trunk of a tree at the edge of the clearing. The other darkspawn who had been part of the argument started laughing; unfortunately, that cost it its head, which went sailing across the clearing to splat against the far side of the rock she was sitting beside.

It was her sign to go, she decided, quietly creeping away from the rock and between the trees. She worked her way slowly and carefully back up the side of the mountain, becoming deathly still when any strange sound reached her ears. It was also difficult to find her way in the darkness, but she kept moving onward. Eventually, she heard Noble give a low whuff ahead of her, and she followed the noise back to the cavelet.

Abelas swept her into his arms when she stepped past the Mabari, crushing her against him. Again, she reached up to press her finger over his lips to keep him silent. Pulling on his arm, she led him back to their bedrolls and slipped back down beneath the coverlet. He lay down beside her, and she pressed herself against his warmth, struggling once again to fall asleep. The first hints of the grey pre-dawn were reaching across the landscape when she finally managed to drift off again.


	21. Part Five -- Chapter Two

Noble and Abelas stood among the crumbling stones while Rhoane examined the frame and glass of the ancient eluvian. She traced her fingers over the carved edges, trying to find a way to activate the magic inherent in the artifact. A spell directed at the eluvian would not work: she had seen the darkspawn try that in the night. There had to be another way.

Seating herself on one of the mossy rocks — one of the toppled, ancient monoliths that the forest was reclaiming — she tried to recall the details of her dreams of the circle and the mirror. But the first thing she always remembered about her dream was the thing she heard just before she awoke: the throbbing chant of “Thrall! Thrall!” She pushed that memory aside, recalling the sickly, green glow that had impressed her in her dream last night. Hadn’t she seen a similar glow coming from the circle — a glow that looked like active magic?

Slipping from the rock, she moved toward the center of the circle. Although the forest had battled for centuries to reclaim this land for itself, it had barely made an impact on the surfaces of the carved rock. A gentle dusting of green lichen had begun to grip into the dense stone, and leaves had drifted into small clusters in the deeply carved hollows. But grasses did not grow in those same spaces, and the mosses that had established their tiny footholds were spread thinly, like freckles across a human’s skin. The magic that had been imbued into the circle was too strong for nature to dominate it.

Studying the pattern that spiraled away around her, she followed one branching arm until it ended just where the rich grasses of the forest undergrowth sprang up. Kneeling at the end of the arc, she tried to brush away the stray leaves and dead vegetation, and her fingers rammed into a small, upstanding stone, approximately two hand-spans tall. Sucking on her injured fingertips, she tried to take hold of the rock with her other hand, but it seemed melded into the ancient form of the circle. Stripping it bare, she noticed that it was carved with runes similar to those on the eluvian and that it was topped with a small indentation. To hold something, she surmised, but what?

“Abelas!” she said, excitedly. “See if there are any more of these upright stones at the outer edges of the spiral arms.”

She saw him nod and begin to trace the pathway of a radial outward.

It was a circle for magic; therefore, it needed someone who could wield magic to power it. But if there were these little stones around the circle, the circle had not been designed to rely on the power of a mage or mages. The magic was driven by another source.

By lyrium.

Jumping to her feel, she began moving around the external edge of the circle, stripping each upright stone that she found until it was bare and clean of debris, calling to Abelas to do the same. When they had finished, they had uncovered eight of the stones, standing in perfect symmetry around the center.

“These two,” the elf said, pointing to stones on the opposite sides of the circle from each other, “directly parallel the rising and setting of the sun. Those two lie upon a squared corner from them, which would indicate that they were ‘north’ and ‘south.’ They appear to be directional points.”

“And there are eight small standing stones with the indentations, each one in a specific direction?”

“Yes, ma vhenan,” the elf replied, “but what is it for?”

She sighed and let her pack fall to the ground beside her. “It is to take you any direction in the Fade that you wish to go.” She knelt beside the leather satchel and reached into its depths, her fingers finally closing on three small vials. Pulling them out, she rose to her feet and looked around the circle.

“I believe,” she explained, “that the eluvian is an ancient gateway, and it’s powered by lyrium. If you could bring lyrium ore to this place, any person at all could use the gateway to travel into the Fade. It’s possible that the passage could also be opened by mages, all channeling their power through the stones and into the mirror, but it would take eight of them, one for each of the uprights. So this is probably where the Tevinter mages entered the Fade, and then returned through here as the darkspawn. The painting may have been made while they were waiting for all of the mages to gather — or for them to return — to commemorate what I’m sure they thought would be a successful venture.”

Abelas frowned and said, “Truly, the hubris of men.”

“If you were not a mage,” she continued, “you probably placed a piece of lyrium in the indentation on the top of the stone, which would activate the magic of the circle and the mirror.”

“But we have no lyrium,” the elf said.

“Yes, we do,” she said, opening her hand to show him the vials — the potions that she could use when her magic had been depleted to restore her energy. “These potions contain lyrium. I’m not sure it will work, but it’s the best chance we have right now. Otherwise, we have to travel to a large city or a kingdom of the dwarves and barter for stones. I’d rather try this.”

“As you say,” he replied. “What shall I do to help you?”

Stepping up to him, she placed her palm against his face and met his eyes. “You don’t have to come,” she said. “Stay here and guard the mirror and our things. Let me do this on my own.”

Turning his head, he pressed his lips to her hand and then looked back at her. “You know that is impossible, ma vhenan. I cannot live without my heart.”

“All right,” she nodded. “I didn’t think I would be able to convince you this late in the journey. And I knew Noble wouldn’t let me go.” At the sound of his name, the Mabari raised his head from his investigations in the grass and whuffed at her. “We’ll only take our weapons. Everything else we need to hide for when we return.”

If we return, she thought, stripping off the clothing she had traveled in for so long and pulling the best set of robes she had with her over her head. She pulled the tying straps tight and dropped her staff into its brace on her back. When she was finished, she looked up and saw that Abelas had his sword in its scabbard between his shoulders, along with his quiver, and his bowstring across his chest. He took their packs and placed them in a hollow between the back of the eluvian and a toppled monolith. Calling Noble to her, she walked to stand in front of the mirror and waited for the elf to join them.

He stepped up beside her and nodded, reaching up to draw his sword and bring it in front of him. Rhoane drew in a deep breath and moved to the edge of circle. She only had three vials of potion: would it be enough power to activate the long-dormant magic of the mirror? Walking among the small, upright stones, she dribbled a portion of each vial into the indentation at the top: at the last one, she held her breath and let the droplets fall.

As the first drip of potion slipped into the top of the stone, the carved floor of the circle came alight, beams of blue-white energy straining up from the spell pattern and toward the sky. She raised her arm to shield her eyes from the intensity of the magic and backed toward Abelas and Noble. Finally, her heel bumped against the lowest step that led up to the waiting mirror portal, and she looked up at the eluvian.

And at the image of a darkened city in its glassy surface.

Focusing on the picture, she let the empty potion vials fall from her fingers, hearing the glass shatter as it struck the stone of the circle of magic. She walked out of the glowing pattern and up to Abelas and Noble. Reaching out her hands, she took the elf’s off-hand and grabbed by the Mabari by the scruff of the neck.

Raising one foot, completely focused on the image of the Black City in the eluvian, she stepped through the mirror.


	22. Part Five -- Chapter Three

The sensation of crossing through the mirror into the Fade felt like slipping into a scum-coated pond of water: as she touched the surface, she longed for nothing so much as to withdraw into the clean air behind her, but as she continued forward, the atmosphere around her changed, becoming comfortingly familiar. The misty landscape of the Fade spread out before her to her left.

To her right — the corrupted Golden City. The Black City.

Noble pressed forward and slipped out of her grip, moving to scout the terrain around them, alert for danger. She drew her trailing hand — the one that was holding on to Abelas — forward and took another step. Without looking over her should, she knew that he was there, feeling his alert wariness and concern for her envelope her like a cloak. Dropping his hand and reaching over her shoulder, she lifted her staff from its brace and walked down the steps, away from the mirror-portal.

She realized almost instantly that she had missed the location that she had been seeing in her dreams. The parallel circle of power was not inscribed on the floor where they were standing. She must have been so focused on the image of the Black City that she had forgotten to add the magic circle to the picture. Still, they were here, so close to where she knew that they needed to be. She moved forward to the great gates of the city, Abelas at her back.

The first thing that she noticed about the city was that the gates were broken — they leaned against each other like drunkards staggering home together in the twilight. A thick, black rope or tendril — four or five times as thick as her arm — had pushed its way between the sections of the gates, snapping the supports and snaking away into the misty distance of the Fade. Noble snuffled his way up to the gates and disappeared, only to reappear a moment later, staring at her and obviously waiting for her to hurry. She had hunched over and was about to step through the opening that her hound had found when Abelas’s hand gripped her shoulder. Straightening, she looked into his eyes.

He was frowning at her, and his fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Ma vhenan, this is your immortal soul we are talking about.”

She shook her head and smiled up at him. “Maybe it’s been lost all along. Maybe when I realized my gifts as a mage … or joined the Grey Wardens … it was just beyond any god’s ability to repair. I don’t know. I just know that I need to keep moving forward.”

The elf nodded and stepped in front of her through the opening. Well, that certainly proves that he’s willing to risk everything for me, she thought, even his immortal soul. She smiled to herself: it made him a man worthy of struggle. Hunching over, she shuffled into the Golden City. 

The courtyard beyond the gates was wide and deep, the buildings arching around the open area in a great semicircle. Three wide sets of stairs led away from the plaza — one directly ahead of her and one each to the side of the central one, but not perpendicular to it. Noble was already sniffing up the stairs to the right, but when he was almost to the top, he turned and galloped back down into the courtyard. Obviously, Rhoane thought, that is not the right direction, which meant that only the center or the left remained. Studying the stone in front of her, she noticed the black tendril that she had seen between the gates and moved toward that staircase to follow it.

The step risers were even and spaced in such a way that it was easy to walk up them, so she felt comfortable looking around her at the walls of the dream city. They curved up around her — none of them straight or square — tarnished, but still with an under-gleam of gold, walls that were topped by fantastical, twisting spires and onion-shaped domes. Countless windows paned in many-colored glass broke the even roundness of the walls, and some of them hung open, as if to let natural light into the rooms beyond.

The tendril grew thicker the farther into the city they went. At one point, she thought that she saw another ropy branching going in a different direction. She frowned and kept moving forward.

As she moved deeper into the city after the snaking tendril, she began to feel the throbbing shake of the chant through the soles of her boots. The echo became plainer, although the volume never seemed to rise significantly. She listened and began to hear words other than that one repeated “Thrall!”

“… empowers us. Before his might they fall. He gives the power divine to us: we hold all gods in thrall.”

Rhoane topped the stairs, coming into another smaller courtyard that seemed to be part of a pleasure garden of benches and a bone-dry fountain. Three sets of stairs led away from the central garden and up to wide balconies, where, she assumed, someone could enjoy a panoramic view of what had been the Golden City.

It was here in this courtyard that she found the pedestal. And the abomination that dwelled atop it.

It still had the shape of a man from his waist to the top of his head — a man whose eyes gleamed with the sickly green of acid or poison. His body looked strongly built, muscled throughout, as if he had been a warrior or pursued martial training, but he appeared to be dressed in the robes of a mage or a priest. One powerfully muscular arm was raised above his head to clench a staff that pulsated and dripped with the acidic green light, the focal gem quivering against the magic that was being poured through it. Following one of the drips of light downward with her eyes, Rhoane noticed that the man on the pedestal — the mage-priest — was surrounded by three to four dozen other humans.

And melded with them.

Through some unholy magic, the beings at the foot of the pedestal had become one: their veins had invaded each others’ bodies, their flesh growing between their torsos and legs to unite them into one mass of rotting skin, with the mage-priest atop the pedestal as their head. Their flesh, darkly rotten and corrupted, was sloughing away from their bones, leaving them as little more than tarry skeletons with eyes that gleamed with the same sickening green light as the staff. She could hear the corporate moans of the dozens of heads and their straining repeat of the word “Thrall!” as she drew nearer to the plinth. The long black tendrils had come from this being: they were its arms, distorted and stretched to distances that were impossible to achieve by anything except an abomination of the Fade. She stepped over one ropy appendage, noticing that it looked thinner, less developed than the others and wondered why that was.

She was standing a within two arms’ length of the pedestal when the flesh creature at the bottom of it began to move. As she watched, the head closest to her slowly swiveled to look at her, and for a moment, she saw it focus on her, its eyes suddenly flickering between the green of the magic to two very human, blue orbs. It moaned at her and tried to lift an arm, but its flesh was bound to the being next to it. The next instant, it was enveloped in the magic again.

Dispassionately, she swung her staff and crushed the skull of the being that had looked at her. She felt the ground beneath her shudder and saw that four other skulls were turning in her direction. One of them stopped when an arrow from Abelas’s bow pierced its eye and drove into whatever remained of its brain. The garden shook again.

Quickly, she began to move among the tendrils, searching for other skulls and smashing them with the end of her staff. Dark ichor splashed across the front of her robes and began to pool at her feel. The chant of “Thrall!” weakened, but the chaotic moaning of the beings entrapped in the mass of flesh grew louder. Abelas joined her, his sword in one hand, his bow in the other, and began beheading the humanoids to the right of her. Looking around for Noble, she saw him gnawing with his sharp, hard teeth at one of the thick, black tendrils, intent on separating it from the abominable mass of flesh on the pedestal.

She stepped farther to her left, mechanically raising her staff and bringing it down on skull after skull when the concussive wave of magic knocked her backward, away from the fleshy mass. As she rose back to her feet, she noticed that the Mabari had managed to chew completely through the tendril that he had been working on: the disruption of the magical connection between the arm and its “body” had created a shockwave that had sent them all flying. Abelas was lying against a bench — she prayed that his back had not been broken — and her hound had been propelled back down the stairs. She saw the mass of humanoid body parts shiver and looked up at the mage-priest at the top. Their eyes met.

“Nooooooooooo!” he screamed, swiveling at the waist to pull himself free of the mass of flesh. He turned to face her, his arm pulling his staff back in preparation for a spell.

Rhoane reacted, casting a freezing spell at the mage-priest and diving to one side. When she came back up to her knees, she pivoted to keep the pedestal in front of her, watching in horror as the bodies that had surrounded the base — the mass of flesh and bones — began to break apart, dissolving into a rancorous pool of slimy flesh, bile, and black ichor. The drumbeat call of “Thrall!” stopped, but the mage-priest on the pedestal continued the recitation of the spell, even as he twisted against the skin and blood vessels that held him in place, breaking the ancient hold upon his flesh.

“Dharmae Khar, the one true god! We answer at his call,” the mage priest shouted, casting a ball of green poison in her direction. Again, she leaped to the side — but not quickly enough to avoid the acidic burn of the spell against her knee. Rising to her feet, she cast her own ball of fire back at him, but he had broken free of the flesh that had held him in place for centuries. He plummeted to the ground on the other side of the plinth and disappeared from her sight.

He continued to chant, “Dharmae Kar empowers us. Before his might they fall. He gives the power divine to us: we hold all gods in thrall.” She was able to determine his general direction from the sound of his voice.

And so could Noble, who came galloping up the stairs and leaped over the twitching pile of human flesh toward the chanting voice. She heard him snap his jaws together and rushed around the pedestal just in time to see the Mabari fly up into the air and slam into the waterless fountain. She heard him whimper and then he was still, but she didn’t have attention to spare for him.

Because the mage-priest was trying a new tactic: blood magic. She could feel him attempting to persuade her blood to respond to him, to convince her to give up her fight and lay down her staff. She struggled against the pull — much stronger than the blood magic than the Tevinter magister had tried on her next to the bridge near Minrathous — and tried to take one step backwards.

The mage-priest’s spell was interrupted when an arrow from Abelas’s bow sank into the flesh at the side of his throat. His scream rose up in the courtyard and echoed eerily off of the rounded walls of the Golden City. Rhoane used his confusion to run up next to Abelas. “Get Noble!” she screamed, crouching beside the bench, readying herself for the next string of spells.

But the mage-priest had other ideas. Stripping Abelas’s arrow from his throat, he motioned to the chaotic lump of flesh that was dissolving around the base of the pedestal. The humanoids that had been melded together there rose up, some with their skulls crushed in or their heads missing completely. They shuffled forward, their eyes unearthly green and glowing with the power of his spell.

“Her!” the mage-priest screamed. “Kill her! Now! Dharmae Khar, the one true God … ” He started his chant again.

Taking a deep breath, Rhoane began casting, each spell knocking a reanimated corpse to the ground or sending it up in a blaze of fire. After a few moments, she heard the twang of Abelas’s bow as he sank shaft after shaft into the oncoming creatures, but soon his quiver was empty. He tossed his bow aside and reached for his other weapon, only to have a blast from the mage-priest’s staff send the sword spinning away from his hands.

The steady beat of wings — a sound that she associated most quickly with the flight of the Archdemon — reached her ears. Oh, Maker, not now, she thought and looked quickly around, only to freeze in shock. A snowy white griffon — the mount of the ancient Grey Wardens of Thedas — was circling above their heads. As she watched, it landed on the edge of the balcony and stood fluffing its feathers with its beak.

She slammed herself back into Abelas’s body to prevent him for moving toward his sword and yelled at him over her shoulder, “Take Noble and go on the griffon! If you have ever loved me, do it now!”

She couldn’t look back: she knew the pain that she would see in his eyes. So instead she stepped forward and scooped his weapon up into her off-hand, waiting for the onslaught of the reanimated corpses. They moved toward her, like the break of a wave against the shoreline, until they suddenly stopped.

The mage-priest was staring past her shoulder; and she suddenly knew that he was looking at the snow-white griffon perched near the railing of the balcony. In that moment, she saw her chance, casting a freezing spell at the mage-priest while he was distracted and shifting Abelas’s sword to her lead hand. She waited for the corpses to come closer, even as the beat of the griffon’s wings and a rushing of air told her that Abelas and Noble were gone. She stepped backward to the stairway in front of the balcony and waited.

But the corpses did not move toward her. They pivoted instead and shambled toward the mage-priest, their eyes no longer glowing with the sickly green of the spell that had held them, too, in thrall, but looking incredibly, unnervingly human. As the mage-priest stared in horror, they descended on him, their sharp, bony fingers digging into his flesh, their teeth digging great gobbets of his skin and muscle away from the bones. When her spell had faded, she heard him scream, calling out, “Dharmae Khar! Dharmae! Why have you forsaken me? I love you!”

He was swallowed up under the mass of corpses determined to exact their revenge. She could tell when he was dead, because the pile of flesh collapsed around him, dissolving into a putrid heap of ancient bone and rancid ichor. 

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she lowered both her staff and Abelas’s sword, feeling, somehow, that her work here was finished. Stumbling backward up the stairs, she slid down onto the cool stone of the balcony, tucked tightly against the railing, her staff slipping to the floor next to her, Abelas’s sword in her lap.

She had done something, but she had no idea what it meant — for her, the Grey Wardens, or Alistair. She could simply feel the gnawing need to investigate the Fade and the Black City slip away from her, like the last lingering sensations from a dream that you cannot recall. She let her breath out forcefully, a great sigh of relief, and climbed to her feet.

Only to feel the entirety of the Black City shake around her.

She stumbled and reached out for the railing to steady herself. Looking toward the staircase, she saw the first of a horde of demonkind crest the stairs, every one of them with their entire being focused directly on her. She looked around for a more defensible position when the Black City shook again. To her horror, she stonework of the balcony she was standing on lurched crazily to one side, separating from the rest of the garden courtyard. She struggled to step forward but instead was propelled out into space, falling amidst the scatter of debris from the collapsing balcony. Hurtling through the mists of the Fade, she felt herself gain momentum until the moment that her head struck something, and she lost consciousness.


	23. Part Five -- Chapter Four

Rhoane awoke to the feel of a pillow under her head and the warmth of a blanket tucked tightly around her shoulders. She luxuriated in those sensations for a moment, breathing in the lilting smell of Andraste’s Grace and remembering that it had been Leliana’s mother’s favorite scent. Opening her eyes, she saw that she was in a hut very much like the one that she had awoken in after the attack on the Tower of Ishal. Had it all been a dream after all? She sighed and tried the idea out loud.

“Thank the Maker, it was all a dream,” she said, waiting to hear Morrigan call her a fool for invoking the Maker’s name.

Instead, she heard a musical laugh fill the room, and a voice that sounded both male and female at the same time responded. “No, it was all very real, Rhoane of the Tower Circle, Grey Warden, Hero of Ferelden. And of me.”

Opening her eyes, Rhoane looked around the room again: it still appeared to be Flemeth’s hut in the depths of the Korcari Wilds, but no one had every spoken to her in a voice like that when she was there. Pushing the blanket away, she sat up and looked over at the person standing in front of the fire. He was taller than she, dressed in a long, night-blue robe with an embroidered half-cloak hanging down his back. His long grey-black hair flowed around his shoulders and was held away from his face by a golden crown.

But the face was the hardest to get used to. As she watched, the man’s face seemed to swim between any number of images — old men, children, women of high and lowly station — all of their visages somehow became part of his visage as she stared at him. She even thought she saw Wynne’s and Alistair’s faces reflected on the head of the man at the fireplace. Recalling her friends, she looked away.

“Where are Abelas and Noble?” she asked, searching for her clothing in the room. “And who are you?”

“They are both safe, outside, waiting for you to awaken,” that musically sexless voice replied. “I pulled this place from your memories, in order to help you feel more comforted when you recovered yourself. I saw you asking many questions there: you can ask similar ones now, if you like.”

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” she replied, locating one of her long, sleeveless undershirts and pulling it over her head.

The crowned man seemed to consider. “I have been called many names, not all of them attractive, but the oldest one that I can remember is Dharmae Khar.”

“Dharmae Khar?” she asked. “You are who the man in the Fade called out to. He said he loved you.”

He turned his head away from her, but she still caught his gentle whisper, “I heard him.”

“Then you are a god?” she queried, equally as quietly.

“Yes,” he answered.

“And that mage loved you and went into the Fade because you told him to? To do your work for you?”

Shaking his head, the god crossed to sit on the end of the bed with his back to her. “That is the greatest folly of all: a god falling in love with a human. The mortal always begins to believe that he or she knows exactly what you would like for them to do. In Fendien’s case, he thought that I should be recognized as the one and only god among a — brotherhood — of powerful beings, endowed with great abilities by the people who believed in us. I was Dharmae Khar, the giver of the sunrise and guardian of the day. I had seven brothers and sisters, all with their own gifts and worshippers — a total of eight ancient gods. Fendien and his followers — my followers — enslaved my brothers and sisters, trapping them in the darkness of the Deep Roads and corrupting our dream of the Golden City.”

Sighing, Dharmae continued, “He wrote beautiful poetry, if you can believe that. He would sit in his tent before a battle and compose the most soaring epics about his coming victory — before it happened. It was his great audacity and the lyrical quality of his work that drew me to him.”

“His efforts seem to have suffered after he entered the Fade,” she said, remembering the chant that the mage-priest had repeated among the echoing walls of the garden courtyard.

“That was one of the problems with the Golden City from the beginning,” Dharmae replied, rubbing one hand across his knee. “We had meant it as a location that anyone could visit by using the eluvian to travel there. It was to be a gathering place for all the inspiration and dreams of the people who looked to us — their gods — for the stories that they would tell and the art that they would make. But when the first of our worshippers crossed into the Golden City, the enormity of the ideas and the great variety of the potential for their creativity overwhelmed them and changed them into beings who continually desired something that they could not have.”

“The demons of the Fade,” she said.

“As you have learned from Curiosity, the Fade was never meant to be the home of demonkind. It was merely the receptacle of humankind’s ambitions and achievements. A place where dreams could be passed from one dreamer to another, so that, someday, they could become realities.”

“So the Golden City was corrupted before the Tevinter magisters tried to gain the powers of the gods for themselves?”

“Yes,” Dharmae replied. “When they broke the gates, the corruption spread out to overwhelm them all. The corruption caused by my lover and my worshippers.”

“And so you sent me to clean up the mess? Why?”

The god looked at her out of the corner of his ever-shifting eyes, and she saw the corner of his mouth — mouths — lift in a smile. “There had never been a moment before that made it possible. As many people have told you, Rhoane, you are a singular woman. You accepted the burden of the Blight with calm grace and put a Grey Warden on the throne of Ferelden. So you were ready — maybe you even needed — to hear that there was a way for Alistair and Anora to conceive a child, because another civil war in Ferelden was unthinkable. You were willing to believe that there was a way to find a cure. And you were a Grey Warden mage, so you understood the Fade and the nature of the darkspawn. Those are quite a number of qualities that have to fall into place before even a god can act.”

She smiled in response, staring down at her hands. “But did it work?” she asked in a small, desperate whisper.

Dharmae reached out and clasped both of her hands in one of his. “Yes, Rhoane, it worked. I’m not certain that you can comprehend the magnitude of the feat that you have completed, but I will try to explain. When you broke Fendien’s spell, you severed the chains that held my brothers and sisters in thrall.

“You have asked this question of others, but I will answer it for you: no, you cannot truly kill a god or destroy their soul. A god’s soul is a gift that he receives from the people who choose to worship him. It is fed by the love that his people feel for him.

“After the Archdemon form that the darkspawn force an Old God to take is — was — destroyed, Fendien’s chant re-established its control and drew their souls back to the Deep Roads and their enslavement. There would not just have been seven Blights in Thedas: there would have been hundreds, century after century, as the darkspawn heeded the call of the Old Gods, again and again, and trapped their souls in the form of the Archdemon.”

“But the darkspawn don’t have to search for them anymore,” Rhoane said slowly, “because the Old Gods are not trapped in the Deep Roads now.”

“True, and the darkspawn will die out, with nothing to drive their need to procreate,” he said, looking toward the fire that snapped across the room. “Also, the Grey Wardens will never again be drawn to the Dark Roads, hearing the same call that led the darkspawn to the Old Gods. In fact, I think they’ll find that the corruption of the Joining Ceremony has been broken.”

Sighing with relief, Rhoane asked about something else that was bothering her. “What about the Old Gods?” she queried. “What will happen to them?

She heard that musical laugh again and smiled to herself, in spite of the seriousness of the question. What could an Old God do to the lands of Thedas, now that it was free from its enslavement in the Deep Roads?

“That will be the adventure in all this,” Dharmae laughed. “My brothers and sisters no longer have great thousands who flock to their temples, and they may never recoup all that has been lost to them. But I wouldn’t put it past any of them to cause at least a little bit of mischief.”

“So …” she hesistated and then finally asked, “am I supposed to be your prophet or something now?”

The god drew back, looking startled. “Did you want to be? Not that I wouldn’t enjoy your company, but I had the impression that there were other, more mundane adventures that were calling to you.”

Breathing out in relief, Rhoane admitted, “I’m glad to hear that, honestly. I’ve had about enough of convincing people of things that are hard to believe. Let them discover the new truth of life for themselves.”

“I wouldn’t have asked it of you anyway, Rhoane,” he admitted in a low voice. “I want to see what you will become, now that your future is your own. Besides, I’m supposed to have turned my back on the people of Thedas. I can’t corrupt their beliefs, because those beliefs and the peoples’ love and faith are what make me who I am.”

She sat with Dharmae for a few more moments, enjoying his comforting presence and trying to think of any other questions that she needed to ask. When none came to mind, she looked toward the door.

“You can go to them whenever you want, Rhoane,” Dharmae Khar said, rising from the bed and walking toward the door. “They both are healed and, I think, very anxious to see you again.” He smiled. “I’ve been keeping them away so that you could rest.”

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, slipping into the mage robe that she found on the chest at the foot of the bed. It wasn’t hers, but it fit, and the fabric was soft against her skin.

“It has been nearly a week,” he admitted, reaching out to take the pull of the door in his hand.

She gasped and hurried over to the door. Dharmae looked at her for a long moment and whispered, “Thank you, Rhoane, Circle Mage, Grey Warden, Hero of Ferelden and aide to Dharmae Khar.” Leaning forward, he pressed his lips against her forehead and opened the door.

Stepping out into the sunshine, she realized that the image of Flemeth’s hut had been just that — an image. Dharmae Khar lived in a cave high in the craggy mountains on a narrow shelf of grassland — dotted here and there with brightly colored flowers — that seemed to brush up into the clear, blue sky. She breathed the fresh air deeply into her lungs and looked around the small meadow. Noble was romping across the grasses, playing some kind of game of tag with a snow-white griffon at least three times his size. Abelas sat with his back to her, watching the game and laughing freely. Rhoane smiled in amazement, feeling Dharmae step out of the cave and come up beside her.

“I almost thought that the griffon was a dream when it came to us in the Fade,” she admitted. “Why don’t they fly with the Grey Wardens anymore, if they are still alive?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, “it is better for the great things in life to become the great things of myth, so that ordinary men — and women — can find the greatness within themselves.”

“Even a god?” she asked him.

Nodding, he replied, “Or a Grey Warden.”

“I would still like to ride one,” she admitted a little stubbornly.

Dharmae laughed, the music of his chuckle dancing across the rocks and through grasses around them. “You did, Rhoane. Admittedly, you were unconscious, but you came here on the back of that griffon’s mate.” Lifting a finger, he pointed toward a large nest perched on the side of the mountain and the other griffin sitting among the rocks and sticks. As if feeling their eyes on it, it opened its mouth and screeched, shaking its head from side to side and ruffing its feathers out around its head.

“She’s awfully proud that she caught you,” he murmured so that only Rhoane could hear, “with all of that debris falling around you.”

Before she could reply, she heard Noble bark and looked up to see him barreling across the meadow toward her. Kneeling on the grass, she opened her arms to him and fell to the ground with him atop her, feeling his tongue slop across her face and the unending, energetic wagging of his tail. She laughed and hugged him closely, grateful that he was safe and alive.

Finally, she pushed him away and watched as he crossed to Dharmae to have his ears scratched. This attention finished, the Mabari raced back into the meadow, barking gleefully at the griffon, resuming their game where they had left off.

Rhoane watched him go, leaning back on her elbows and stretching her legs out in front of her. She sat there, feeling the cool brush of the grass against her fingers and the ripple of the breeze through her long, loose hair, until Abelas walked up beside her and extended his hand to help her rise to her feet.

“Could you endure one more joyful greeting, ma vhenan?” he asked, pulling her up into his arms when she laughed in response and swinging her in wide circles across the flower-specked grass. When he let her stand on her own feet again, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and held him close. She felt the brush of his lips against her hair and smiled, her eyes closing, resting against the throb of heart against hers.

“I will, of course, take you anywhere you wish to go,” the god was saying as he crossed to them. “Not on the griffons, unfortunately, they cannot be seen outside of the protection of my meadow. But just choose where. And before we go, is there anything else that I can do for you?”

Abelas spoke quickly, while Rhoane was still thinking that there was nothing more that she could wish for. “Wed me to her. Now.” He pushed her away from him and looked down into her eyes. “It is what you would wish for, is it not, Rhoane, ma vhenan, for us to be joined together for all of our life?”

She nodded silently: she could think of no greater gift that she could receive.

Dharmae Khar stepped up next to them and turned them so that they clasped hands, face-to-face. “It is a great gift that you have given each other,” he said. “Through this woman, you have found a name, Abelas, and can now dream of things that are impossible to a slave. Through her, you have found your freedom in the silken bonds of love.

“And you, Rhoane, Grey Warden, mage of the Circle Tower, have found that it is possible to give your heart again and have your love returned threefold and more. You have swum through the depths of despair and fear for each other; rise now to the surface and breath the air of your new life.”

The god looked over at Abelas and placed his hand upon the red-brown hair. “Love her well, my friend,” Dharmae said and leaned forward to press a kiss against the elf’s forehead.

Rhoane felt his hand against her own head, gentle and warm, filling her with a hopeful peace. Dharmae leaned forward, his lips brushing her temple. “Be at peace, my friend, and live within the circle of this man’s love.”

She smiled up at Abelas and felt him squeeze her hands. They were married, here in the meadow by Dharmae Khar. In the sight of the Maker.


	24. Epilogue

Rhoane leaned against the wall next to the window that looked out across the great harbor of Antiva City, watching the ships dance past each other in the deeply blue waters. Lifting her hair away from her neck — which was just a little bit too warm and beginning to dew up with sweat — she let the long, raven’s wing black tresses fall over one shoulder and brush against the fullness of the new life that was growing inside of her. She placed one hand on the expanding curve of her abdomen and smiled.

Noble was stretched out in the patch of sunlight that poured through the window, wriggling on his back. “I think you’ve been lying to me all along, Noble,” she said. “I think you’re really a cat.”

The Mabari growled deeply in his throat but otherwise ignored her.

The door to her suite of rooms opened. “Yes, I see it now, my dear Grey Warden,” Zevran said, striding toward her across the room. “I should have kidnapped you in those first moments — not tried to assassinate you. You were made to wear the veils of an Antivan prostitute.”

She laughed and retorted, “You certainly didn’t lie about the smell of the tanneries. There is nothing like …”

“The smell of Antivan leather,” he finished for her. “But I have come with very important news, just delivered from one of my most reliable spies in the court of the king and queen of Ferelden. The dynasty is assured. Anora has given Alistair a tiny prince.”

Rhoane was surprised at the sense of relief rushed through her: she hadn’t realized that she was still so uncertain that Alistair and Anora would be able to have children, even though her and Abelas’s growing child was proof that it was possible. Her knees wobbled slightly, and Zevran crossed to her side, taking her hand and leading her to a softly padded chair. He pressed her down into it and sat on the arm, hovering over her in friendly concern.

“The Grey Wardens still search for you,” he murmured, his long fingers plucking at the cloth of his pants, unable to be still. “Despite the fact that I have spread rumor after rumor that you were driven into the Deep Roads earlier than most, they inquire and try to hire the Crows to find you.”

“Then it’s a good thing for me that you’re the master of the Crows, Zev,” she said, resting her head against the back of the chair.

He smiled and replied, “Yes, a very good thing for you. It gets you these fine accommodations with a beautiful view of the harbor …”

“And the wafting smell of Antivan tanners at work,” she teased him.

Teasing her in return, he said, “And the most pleasant opportunities to spend time with me.” He sat without speaking for a few moments, his fingers still busy with the fabric. “Have you decided what you will do?”

“Yes,” she answered him. “As soon as the baby is able to travel, Abelas and I will go to Weisshaupt and report to the Grey Wardens. I will be able to claim that we found the infant during our journey, deflecting those questions. Then I’ll give them as much information as I can and tell them that I am going into the Deep Roads, because I can’t continue to live without Alistair. I assume they all suspect about our relationship anyway, so I may as well use that as my excuse.” Closing her eyes, she finished, “And then Abelas and I will take our child and disappear into the wilderness.”

“I will miss you, you know,” Zevran said.

“Really?” she asked, opening her eyes and smiling at him. “The one that got away, Zev?”

He laughed and replied, “In more ways that one, my dear friend.”

“Flirting with my wife, are you?” Abelas’s voice came from the doorway, and Rhoane rose to walk to his side and into his embrace. He pulled her tightly against his chest and kissed her brow. 

“Never!” Zevran exclaimed, holding up one hand and crossing to the door. “I know when I have been outmatched, Abelas, and I am perfectly willing to admit it.” He placed his hand on one of the other elf’s shoulders and Rhoane saw his fingers squeeze together. “Besides, she has already proven to me that it is very difficult to assassinate her, and I would assume that she is equally as protective of you. It is in the best interest of the Crows not to try to come between the two of you.”

Telling them that he would see them for dinner, Zevran left the room, pulling the door gently shut behind him. Rhoane smiled up at her husband and let him kiss her, feeling once again that stirring of passion that even the simplest touch could start within her. Tracing the contours of his ear, she said, “I am feeling awfully hot today. Is there no way that you can help reduce my heat?”

“Would you like a bath?” he asked.


End file.
